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THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 




• The Lost Sheep 
by a. w swokd 



mt Htgilt of tfie Wotl* 

A BRIEF COMPARATIVE STUDY 
OF 

Christianity and Non-Christian 
Religions 



BY 

ROBERT E. SPEER 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE UNITED STUDY 
OF MISSIONS * * * * * WEST MEDFORD, MASS. 

All rights reserved 



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<>1 



%\ 



Copyrjoht, April, 191 1 



CENTRAL O 'MMivi EE ON 1 HE UNITED 
MISSIONS 



Frank Wood, Printer 
Boston, Mass. 



©CU305H36 



^ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Page 

Introduction vii 

Chapter I. Hinduism 1 

Chapter II. Buddhism 61 

Chapter III. Animism, Confucianism and 

Taoism 121 

Chapter IV. Mohammedanism . . . 177 
Chapter V. What the Christians of Asia 
Think of the Non-Christian 

Religions 241 

Chapter VI. Christ, the Only Light of 

the World , 297 

Index 369 



FOREWORD 

Ten years have passed since the organization of the 
Central Committee on the United Study of Missions 
in connection with the Ecumenical Conference held in 
New York, May, 1900. Ten study books have been 
published through the Macmillan Company, and about 
seven hundred thousand copies have been sold through 
Women's Boards of Missions. The last volume, 
"Western Women in Eastern Lands," by Helen Barrett 
Montgomery, has reached sales of nearly one hundred 
thousand, and marks not only the completion of ten 
years of study but the fiftieth anniversary of the organi- 
zation of Women's Foreign Missionary Boards in the 
United States. It has led to the celebration of the 
Jubilee of Missions. 

Our book for the coming year, "The Light of the 
World," is published by the Central Committee. Its 
author is Mr. Robert E. Speer, who deals in an 
attractive and sympathetic way with the great religions 
of the world. No one is better fitted for the task, and 
Mr. Speer has in these sj x chapters presented fairly 
these Eastern faiths and shown clearly their inadequacy 
to human need. The testimony of eminent men who 
have come out from these religions into the true Light 
cannot be disputed or discounted.. 

The presence in our own country of certain men and 
women who are giving incomplete and incorrect state- 
ments of non-Christian faiths, which are sometimes 
accepted by American women, makes this volume 
especially valuable at this time. 

Mrs. Henry W. Peabody. 
Miss E. Harriet Stanwood. 
Miss Rachel Lowrie. 
Mrs. Decatur M. Sawyer. 
Miss Grace T. Colburn. 
Mrs. A. V. Pohlman. 
Miss Elizabeth C. Northup. 
Miss Olivia H. Lawrence. 



INTRODUCTION 

Christ is the Light of the World. He is its 
only and its perfect Light. In comparing Chris- 
tianity with the other religions of the world 
Christians are not seeking for something in the 
other religions which Christianity lacks. We 
believe that in Christ all fullness dwells and that 
we are to be complete in Him. We make the 
comparison of Christianity with the non-Christian 
religions for three purposes: First, to discover 
where the points of contact and of separation are v/ 

found, in order that Christianity may be the 
more effectively presented to the non-Christian 
peoples; Second, to bring clearly into view 
those fundamental differences between Chris- 
tianity and all other religions which justify and 
require the effort of missions to make Christianity 
the religion of all men; and, Third, to bring to 
light by the comparison of Christianity with the 
gropings of the non-Christian faiths, and by its 
application to all the life of humanity, those 
latent and inexhaustible treasures in Christianity 
which will otherwise be undeveloped. 

It is on this basis that we lay Christianity 
down for this comparison. Not for one moment 
do we classify it with the world's religions or 
regard it simply as the natural crown of humanity's 
religious aspiration. There is in it something 



viii INTRODUCTION 

radically distinctive which sets Christianity in a 
class apart and alone. As the Rev. C. F. Andrews 
has said in a recent article in a Christian 
periodical in India: — 

Christ is indeed the fulfillment of each world- 
religion, and the Light of each world-faith, yet He is 
something infinitely more. He is the Crucified. And 
He makes, with every one who comes to Him, the 
tremendous primary condition of sacrifice, of death. 
In Himself is a new beginning, a new life-start; but this 
can only be reached by the death of the old life. Christ 
came indeed to fulfill Judaism ; but there was no easy, 
smooth, accommodating, assimilative evolution. The 
Jews crucified Him. Paul the Apostle is never tired of 
declaring that Christ was the fulfilling of the law; yet he 
knew, through intense agony of suffering, that he must 
die to the law, in order to live to Christ; that the old 
man must be crucified, so that the new man may be 
made manifest. Even so, Hinduism, great and noble as 
it is, must die and be reborn before it can live to 
Christ. The Christian believes in fulfillment — no one 
more so! but it is fulfillment through the Cross; fulfill- 
ment through a resurrection from the dead. ( The 
Indian Standard, November, 1910.) 

It is as those who are certain of this, and who 
know Christ to be the Lord of all mankind, the 
Saviour of the world, that we take up in candor 
and sympathy the study of the religious thought 
and life of the nations which have not known of 
Christ and must be won to Him. The very 
security of our faith in Christ makes it possible 
for us to view in love and tenderness all out- 
reachings of men after that which can be found 



INTRODUCTION ix 

in Christ alone, and to regard in pity and com- 
passion all those deep evils which have burdened 
the religious nature and darkened the worship 
and polluted the life of man. 

Our one desire is to know the facts in order 
that we may clearly discern and fully discharge 
our duty. In seeking for these facts we shall 
consider first Hinduism, then Buddhism, then 
Animism, Confucianism and Taoism, and then 
Mohammedanism. These religions include prac- 
tically the whole population of the non-Christian 
world. After these studies we shall weigh the 
testimony of the men of Asia who have in their 
own personal experience tested and compared the 
non-Christian religions with Christianity; and 
last of all, w T e shall consider the claims of Chris- v 
tianity as the final and absolute religion. 

In these studies there has been no attempt at 
novelty of statement. The effort has been simply 
to set forth the comparative facts clearly and 
carefully, citing at every point the most fair and 
competent authorities, and seeking only to bathe 
the whole investigation in the atmosphere of 
missionary sympathy and of a Christian faith, at 
once open-minded and perfectly fearless and 
assured. 



CHAPTER I 
HINDUISM 



CHAPTER I 



HINDUISM 



Hinduism is at once the oldest and the newest, Complexity 
the most massive and the most loose-woven, the of Hinduism, 
most composite and the most simple, with the 
noblest and basest elements of any of the non-Chris- 
tian religions. In its most ancient and worthy 
form it dates from the dawn of history. In the 
gray of that early morning when the Aryans moved 
out from Central Asia, our ancestors passed west- 
ward, while the ancestors of our Indian kinsmen 
streamed south through the mountain passes of 
the Punjab, and subdued or absorbed the Dra- 
vidian aborigines. Yet Hinduism is also the 
newest of religions, shifting its view and modi- 
fying its character to incorporate the forces that 
beat upon it and to which it would fain adapt 
itself without surrendering its integrity or break- 
ing with its past. It is the most massive and 
composite of religions. It is indeed rather a 
conglomerate of religions than a religion. The 
social principle of caste gives it a firm and mar- 
velous unity, but within this unity there is a 
diversity of ideas, of theological principles, and 
of moral character so comprehensive as to include 
all contradictories and to make room for the 



4 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

highest and lowest elements. On the one hand 
are the ideas of redemption from the world and of 
union with God, which India has sought with 
"desperate resolution for three thousand tragic 
years," contempt for all earthly things as of no 
account in comparison with the heavenly treasure, 
the spirit of sacrifice and devotion which found 
utterance in such prodigal and reckless offering 
of life in loyalty to religion that it had to be 
prohibited by the British Government in the name 
alike of mercy and of truth, and the exaltation of 
bhakti or living faith as the true way by which to 
draw near to God. On the other hand is the idea 
of pantheism which vitiates India's thinking 
about God and the world, and which, penetrating 
the whole Hindu faith, obscures the personality 
of God, reduces the actual world to illusion, and 
obliterates the fundamental moral distinctions. 
And beneath this are idolatry, base and debasing 
conceptions of God, and in certain sections of 
Hinduism the vile and unspeakable degradation 
which exalts lust into a religious principle. 
Noble We shall be able better to estimate the good 

Qualities oi that is in Hinduism and more justly to discern 
Indian People. anc i judge the evil, if we distinguish between the 
religion and the people of India. Some people 
are better than the logical result of their religious 
ideas would suggest, and others are worse. Here 
in the West we are worse than our religion. Its 
commonest requirements are in advance of our 
practices. But in India the people are better 



HINDUISM 5 

than their religion. They fall short, as we do, 
of what their best religious ideals require of 
them, but many of them live far above its moral 
permissions. India would be a sorry land if 
there were no men in it superior in character to 
Hinduism's gods. "It is a wonder to my mind,'' 
said Bishop Caldwell, "that the people of India, 
with such a religion as theirs, should possess so 
many good qualities as I believe they do ; and my 
explanation of the wonder is that, notwithstanding 
their religion, God has conferred upon them, 
through the teaching of His providence and 
through the inheritance of experience, many 
excellent gifts. I admire much that I see 
amongst the people of India. I admire their 
religiousness; I admire their temperance; I 
admire their patience and gentleness and courtesy ; 
I admire their care of their ' relations to the 
farthest remove, and, in many particulars, I 
admire what remains of the primeval framework 
of their village system and their social system. 
Only let the still more important elements of 
individual and national character which are pro- 
duced by Christianity, and by Christianity alone, 
be superadded to these and similar characteristics 
of race, and the result will be a style of character 
of which neither India nor Christianity will have 
need to be ashamed. " ("Christianity and Hin- 
duism, ' * p. 40. ) In general, even now the people 
of India are simple, temperate, kindly, religious. 
There are five sins for which, in their view, 



6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

there is no atonement — killing a Brahman, rob- 
bing a Brahman, defiling a teacher's wife, eating 
cow's flesh, and drinking intoxicants. The god 
Krishna said, "A drunkard shall, in his next 
birth, get the birth of a dog or a vulture." And 
no people on earth have shown more religious 
devotion, uttered in more ready and unhesitating 
sacrifice. "I have found no people in Europe 
more religious," says Sir Monier Williams, 
"none more patiently persevering in common 
duties, none more docile and amenable to author- 
ity, none more dutiful to parents, none more 
faithful in service. ... I doubt, however, 
whether the worst Indians are so offensive in 
their vices as the worst type of low, unprincipled 
Europeans. . . . They show greater respect for 
animal life than Europeans. They have more 
natural courtesy of manners, more duti fulness, 
more veneration for rank, age and learning, and 
they are certainly more temperate in eating and 
drinking." ("Modern India and the Indians," 
pp. 88, 128 — quoted by Sukumar Haldar, "Hin- 
duism," p. 22.) The natural virtues, or capaci- 
ties for virtues, of the Indian people are needed 
for the uses of Christ. 
The Good And we are able to recognize not only the good 

in Indian that is in the Indian people but also, as has been 

Religion. said, and as we shall have to consider more fully 

later, the good that is in the Indian religion and 
its sacred books. It is true that even the most 
friendly judges of these writings admit that the 



HINDUISM 7 

good is buried in what is worthless or worse. 
Max Muller, in the "Preface to the Sacred Books 
of the East, " speaks of the good in them as treas- 
ures extracted from refuse, as solitary fragments 
of pure gold disinterred from a heap of rubbish. 
Dr. Jacob Chamberlain gathered a collection of 
these fragments, which he was accustomed to 
quote in his preaching in India and in his mis- 
sionary addresses in America. But he was accus- 
tomed to point out, as Max Muller also admitted, 
that these noble passages w r ere as oases in great 
deserts, and he told of an old Indian who ex- 
claimed in surprise at hearing these quotations, 
"I never found any things like these in our 
sacred books." 

We shall understand better the religious prob- The Sacred 
lem in India and have some idea of the religious Books of 
development which has taken place if we look I" n£ luism. 
for a moment at these sacred books which record 
the history of Indian religion, and which, as the 
Bibles of India, exercise a powerful influence 
over its religious life to-day. The sacred litera- 
ture of Hinduism is of two classes, Sruti, "that 
which is heard or revealed," and Smriti, "that 
which is remembered and handed down by tradi- 
tion." The Sruti includes the four Vedas, the 
Rig- Veda, the Sama-Veda, the Yajur-Veda and 
the Atharva-Veda, and the three portions of each 
of these Vedas ; i. e., the Mantras, the Brahmanas 
and the Upanishads. The Smriti may be said 
to denote all the post-Vedic literature under the 



8 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

five divisions: (1) The Darsanas or six Systems 
of Philosophy. There were six of these systems, 
as follows: Nyaya, Vaiseshika, Sankhya, Yoga, 
Mimansa and Vedanta, of which the last has been 
the most influential; (2) The six Vedangas, 
covering rules for sacrifice, grammar, astronomy, 
etc.; (3) The Smarta-sutras, containing rules relat- 
ing to domestic rites and conventional usages; (4) 
The Dharma-sastras, or Law-books, of which the 
most famous and influential was the Code of 
Mann; (5) The Bhakti-sastras, including the great 
poems, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, and also 
the Puranas and Tantras. Of this literature, 
the hymns of the Vedas or the Mantras express 
the early stage of religious thought, which 
may be called physiolatry ; the Brahmanas rep- 
resent ritualism and sacrifice; the Upanishads 
and Darsanas, rationalistic and pantheistic phil- 
osophy ; Manu, caste and domestic usages, and 
the Bhakti-sastras the principle of devotion to 
personal gods. 
The Vedic Of all this literature, India thinks most to-day 

Hymns. f t h e Vedic hymns, the Upanishads, the Vedanta 

philosophy, and the section of the Mahabharata 
known as the Bhagavad-gita. (1) The Arya 
Samaj represents the highest devotion to the 
Vedas. In the Arya catechism occurs the ques- 
tion, "What revelation is true and infallible?" 
and the answer is, "The Vedas are the only 
infallible revelation," conforming to the Arya's 
tests of a true revelation. The next question is, 



HINDUISM 9 

"Give the meaning of the Vedas;" and the 
answer is, "The divinely inspired writings con- 
tained in the oldest books that exist in the world, 
embodying the highest secular, spiritual and 
occult truths, sciences and philosophies, are 
called the Vedas. ' ' The noblest god in the Vedic 
hymns is Varuna, of whom Professor Hopkins - 
says, "Varuna beside the loftiest figure in the 
Hellenistic pantheon stands like a god beside 
a man." (''Religions of India," p. 172.) But 
Varuna was not popular, and he was displaced by 
other deities, — Agni, the fire god, and Indra, the 
warrior god. If there had only been a succession 
of poets like those who composed the penitential 
hymns in the Rig-Veda, says Dr. Griswold, 
"Varuna might have prevailed; just as Yahweh 
in Israel prevailed over the Baalim. And if 
Varuna had prevailed, the religious history of 
India would have been different from what it has 
been. 'If Varuna had prevailed,' as Professor 
Bloomfleld says, 'India would have become mono- 
theistic and theocratic, which it never did.' " 
(Griswold, "The God Varuna in the Rig-Veda," 
p. 33.) Not only are the Vedas, accordingly, not 
monotheistic, as Nehemiah Goreh, one of the 
most notable -converts from Hinduism, showed 
("Supposed and Real Doctrines of Hinduism," 
pp. 11-18), but the baser gods triumphed over 
the nobler ones. 

(2) The Upanishads were the Hindu scriptures UpanisKads. 
which appealed so forcefully to Schopenhauer. 



10 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

u Oh, how thoroughly is the mind here washed 
clean of all early engrafted Jewish superstitions, 
and of all philosophy that cringes before those 
superstitions! In the whole world there is no 
study, except that of the originals, so beneficial 
and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It 
has been the solace of my life; it will be the 
solace of my death." The Upanishads represent 
the groping of men's souls for peace after their 
discontent with the futility of the sacrificial ritu- 
alism of the Brahmanas. Their object, as Max 
Muller says, was "to show the utter uselessness — 
nay, the mischievousness — of all ritual perform- 
ances; to condemn every sacrificial act which has 
for its motive a desire or hope of reward; to 
deny, if not the existence, at least the exceptional 
and exalted character of the Devas, and to teach 
that there is no hope of salvation and deliverance 
except by the individual Self recognizing the true 
and universal Self, and rinding rest there, where 
alone rest can be found." ("Hibbert Lectures, " 
pp. 340, 341.) This note of pessimism, which 
has never since left Indian thought, now appears. 
How can the soul be glad when its only hope of 
salvation is found within itself? And with all 
this sad but noble questioning the Upanishads 
mingle much that is unworthy. As Williams 
says, they are "a labyrinth of mystical ideas and 
puerile conceits." Max Muller says that it was 
a problem with him how these books "should, 
side by side of so much that is fresh, natural, 



HINDUISM 11 

simple, beautiful and true, contain so much that 
is not only unmeaning, artificial and silly, but 
even hideous and repellent." ("The Upani- 
shads, " Vol. I, Introduction.) 

(3) The Vedanta philosophy in the Upanishads, Darsanas. 
and in the philosophical writings of the Darsanas 
which followed them, is the great intellectual in- 
fluence among the thoughtful Hindus to-day. It 

is the higher Hinduism as opposed to popular 
Hinduism. The best book on the subject is 
Slater's "The Higher Hinduism in Relation to 
Christianity." These two types of Hinduism, 
the philosophical and the popular, present to the 
missionary enterprise the great religious problem 
of the present day, and must be considered later 
together. 

(4) The most popular Bible of Hinduism to- Bhagavad- 
day is the Bhagavad-gita, embodying the Vedanta gita. 
view and also ministering to the popular need of 

faith in some personal deity. It is this combina- 
tion which gives it its favor. As Mr. Slater 
says, "The insufficiency of a pantheistic creed, 
and the need of some Object of worship and 
devotion in which the heart may rest, are shown 
very clearly in the Bhagavad-gita, the most 
popular devotional book of the thoughtful classes 
of India. Its main teaching is that men's devo- 
tion (bhakti) must be directed to a person — the 
Krishna, the Ishta Devata — as a representative 
of the Supreme, with the additional quality of a 
Redeemer. It arose from a fusion of the tran- 



12 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

scendental and popular elements, both of which 
had existed all along in Hinduism. It seeks to 
combine the mystic pantheism of the Vedanta 
with an attractive mythology, and hence its 
popularity." ("The Higher Hinduism," p. 
125.) The aim of the book is also to harmonize 
the doctrines of the three most influential of the 
philosophical schools, the Yoga, the Sankhya 
and the Vedanta. It is the loftiest flight of 
Hindu thought and feeling, with many noble 
sentiments, with none of the degrading represen- 
tations of Krishna found in the Puranas. Its 
style is deemed incomparable and Krishna be- 
comes in it not simply a great hero, but the 
Supreme Being. The poem possesses a charm 
and beauty of its own, and is more Christian in 
sentiment than any other Indian literature. It 
inculcates such virtues as " 'fearlessness, purity of 
heart, steadfastness, self-restraint, harmlessness, 
truth, absence of wrath, renunciation, peaceful- 
ness, absence of calumny, compassion to living 
beings, uncovetousness, mildness, modesty, ab- 
sence of fickleness, boldness, forgiveness, forti- 
tude, uprightness, amity, absence of pride,' as 
Divine and human properties." (Gita, XVI, 1-3; 
Slater, "The Higher Hinduism, p. 146.) But 
all that is good in the Gita is in Christianity, 
and, on the other hand, it teaches a doctrine that 
would justify murder; it upholds caste, binding 
its shackles on again against the assault made 
upon them by Buddhism; it blends pantheism 



HINDUISM 13 

with polytheism; it teaches that all qualities, 
whether good or bad, proceed from Krishna, and 
so it obscures ethical distinctions and paralyzes 
moral responsibility; it teaches the Vedantic 
doctrine of Maya or illusion, the unreality of the 
world; it has no conception "of the real evil of 
sin as a violation of a moral government, and 
makes no provision whereby sin may be justly 
forgiven and its thraldom and government 
removed." "The salvation it teaches," as 
Bishop Caldwell said, "is not a salvation from 
sin by means of a new birth to righteousness, 
commencing in the present life and projected 
hereafter, but merely a salvation from the necessity 
of being born again in repeated births, by means 
of the final emancipation of spirit from matter." 
And yet the Gita is India's noblest religious book. 

"The one idea which is impressed on the India Still 
mind," says the Rev. J. N. Farquhar, after a Seeking a 
survey of the sacred books of India, "is that Blble - 
Hindu literature is an endless succession of fruit- 
less attempts to reach a satisfying sacred book. 
As the history of Hinduism is a long search after 
God, each new effort implying the failure of the 
preceding, so the unimaginable extent of the 
sacred literature is an open confession that the 
right book has not yet been found. There are 
many Hindu books which please the philosopher; 
there are many Hindu books which amuse and 
interest the peasant; but there is no Hindu book 
which interests both and uplifts both. Every 



14 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

aspect of Hinduism and every sect has its sacred 
book, but there is no book which teaches Hindu- 
ism as such. Perhaps the Gita is the best com- 
pendium in existence, but even the Gita is a 
sectarian manual and is totally unfit for the 
educated. Does not this history, so great, so 
suggestive, and yet so unsatisfying, show that the 
Hindu soul needs just such a book as the Bible?" 
("The Young Men of India," March, 1910. 
Article, "The Bibles of India," p. 41.) 

"I am not a Christian," wrote a Hindu in a 
widely quoted article in an Indian magazine eight 
years ago, "but I think the more Christ-like we 
become, the better for us and our land. And 
towards securing this happy end, nothing can be 
more effective than the practice of placing before 
the minds of our students daily and repeatedly the 
ideal of love, self-abnegation, and suffering for 
others' sake, that is presented to us in the pages 
of the Gospels. What figure in the ancient 
history of India impresses us with greater rever- 
ence, except it be Raja Ram Chundra? But the 
narrative, describing the life and deeds of the 
latter, is marred with gross inconsistencies, and 
its value as a testimony is much diminished. 
How simple, how direct, how unadorned is the 
Gospel narrative! Truth is stamped on it; it 
carries its proof along with it. No external evi- 
dence is needed. Half an hour's study of the 
Bible will do more to remodel a man than a 
whole day spent in repeating the slokas of the 




India — Jain Temple at Sadkee, Oodeypore 
(Figure of Vishxu) 



HINDUISM 15 

Puranas or the mantras of the Rig- Veda. " 
("The Kayastha Samachar," August, 1902. 
Article, "The Religion of Our Young Men, " pp. 
144, 145.) "Yes," Max Muller tells us a friend 
wrote to him, "you are right; how tremendously 
ahead of other sacred books is the Bible! The 
differences strike one as almost unfairly great." 
But the unfairness lies in withholding the one 
supreme book from the world. 

The three forms of Hinduism then with which Hinduism 
Christianity comes into contact to-day in India To-day. 
may be said roughly to be philosophic Hinduism, 
popular Hinduism and reformed Hinduism. The 
lines of distinction are not, of course, clear. 
Philosophic Hinduism and popular Hinduism 
both represent a moral advance on the Hinduism 
of two centuries ago. The influence of the con- 
tact with Christian ethics and the legislation of 
the British Government have abolished, as we 
shall see, many gross evils, but both philosophic 
and popular Hinduism cling still to positions 
from which many Hindus are prepared to break 
. away. Something must be said about each of 
these three types of Hinduism. 

1. As a result of the Western education which Philosophic 
India has been receiving for fifty years and of the Hinduism, 
revived study of Sanskrit by European students 
whose labors have been popularized in India by 
native scholars, the educated classes of India 
"now understand something of the history of 
their religion and know that their ancient faiths 



16 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

were very different from modern Hinduism." 
The consciousness of the necessity of religion and 
the growth of the spirit of nationalism have com- 
bined with the Christian influences to produce a 
great reaction in favor of ancient Hinduism. 
"Just as the scholars of mediaeval times in 
Europe appealed to the reason and the imagination 
by eulogizing the speculations and poetry of the 
ancient world, so the Hindus of to-day turn to 
their long-forgotten literature, and seek to meet 
the needs of society by a renovated Hinduism. 
The more thoughtful of the people have beaten a 
retreat from their temples to their sacred books. 
Conscious of the unsoundness of much of the out- 
ward structure of their faith, they have fallen 
back with the boldness of despair on their ancient 
philosophy, which is now thrust to the front as 
the main support of Hinduism." (Slater, "The 
Higher Hinduism," p. 12.) The core of this 
new Hinduism is the Vedanta philosophy, the 
old pantheism of India, read full of new meanings 
drawn from India's contact with Christianity and 
Western thought. Essentially, however, it is the 
old pantheistic philosophy. In its view the uni- 
verse is God; from Him it proceeds, into Him it 
is dissolved, in Him it breathes. God alone 
exists truly, the world falsely; the soul only is 
God and no other. Nothing really exists but the 
one impersonal Spirit which is God. This 
Spirit is itself Existence, Knowledge, Joy, but 
the existence is without consciousness and the joy 



HINDUISM 17 

is only freedom from the miseries of transmigra- 
tion. "When this impersonal unconscious Spirit 
assumes ^consciousness and personality — that is, 
when it begins to exist in any object, to think 
about anything or be joyful about anything — it 
does so by associating itself with Maya, the 
power of Illusion." (Murdoch, "Philosophic 
Hinduism," p. 19.) It is only through the influ- 
ence of Maya or illusion that we look upon things 
as different, such as the potter and his pots or the 
weaver and his beam, or indeed that we see them 
as existing at all. (Lai Behari Dey, "Vedan- 
tism, " p. 4.) The central word of the Vedanta 
is Ekamivadvitiyam, "One only without a 
second." God only is. 

It is true that into all this the modern Vedan- 
tists have woven a great' deal that was never 
dreamed of in the Upanishads, but they have not 
abandoned the old pantheistic philosophy. "The 
creation," says Saradananda, "is as eternal as 
the creator himself." And Vivakananda, in one 
of his lectures on the unifying of one's self in the 
Infinite, exclaimed, "I am neither body nor 
changes of the body. Nor am I sense nor object 
of senses. I am existence absolute. Bliss ab- 
solute. Knowledge absolute. I am it. I am it. 
I am neither death, nor fear of death, nor was I 
ever born, nor had I parents. ... I am without 
form, without limit, beyond space, beyond time. 
I am in everything. I am the basis of the Uni- 
verse. Everywhere am I." ("Homiletic Re- 



18 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

view," April, 1901. Article by F. F. 
Ellinwood, "Vedantism in America," p. 306.) 

Vfvakananda. No two personalities have contributed more to 
this neo-Hinduism, or drawn the imagination of 
Indians more powerfully to a revivification of the 
ancient faith, than Vivakananda and Mrs. Annie 
Besant. Vivakananda, whose real name was 
Narendra Nath Datta, was a graduate of a mis- 
sionary college in Calcutta and a member of a 
well-known family there, some of whose members 
were Christians. He studied law, but did not 
practice. For a time he was a member of the 
Brahmo Samaj, and as a teacher in the Metro- 
politan Institution founded by the reformer 
Vidyasagar, tried to prove the hollowness of 
Hinduism. Later he became a disciple of a 
Hindu Ascetic, Ramakrishna Paramahansa, 
though he never himself practiced asceticism. 
He was not a scholar, and he was sometimes 
carried beyond the truth in his enthusiasm, but 
he was a man of much eloquence and magnetism, 
and his success in America as a preacher of the 
higher Hinduism paved the way for many suc- 
cessors, and his influence in India powerfully 
aided the revival of a nationalistic Hindu spirit. 
(See "Swami Vivakananda and His Guru.") 

Mrs. Besant. Mrs. Besant also has had an interesting history. 

She has been successively Protestant and High 
Church Christian, anti-Christian, theist, atheist, 
materialist, anti-materialist, Malthusian and anti- 
Malthusian, spiritualist, theosophist, pantheist, 



HINDUISM 19 

polytheist and Hindu. The theosophical move- 
ment, with which she is still allied, exerts a wide 
influence in India. It is a movement within Hin- 
duism, and Mrs. Besant is at present the leading 
figure in it and in the Hindu revival, ardent in 
her devotion to the ancient glories of Hinduism, 
and in her opposition to the progress of Chris- 
tianity. With the patriotic devotion of India to 
its past we cannot but have great sympathy; and, 
as we shall see, in some of the ideas of that past, 
and all the more as modified by the necessities of 
India's spiritual experience and by contact with 
Christian thought, there are the very points of 
contact which we seek and without which we 
should be in despair of reaching the Indian mind 
and heart. 

2. The theology of popular Hinduism is poly- p opu i ar 
theism, and its worship is idolatry. It "con- Hinduism, 
ceives the Impersonal Spirit as making itself 
known under three forms," says Dr. Datta. 
"Brahma (masculine, not Brahma, neuter) the 
Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Siva the 
Destroyer. Modern Hinduism concerns itself 
mainly with the last two persons of its trinity. 
Both are closely related to certain accessory 
divinities, such as Ganesa and Subrahmanya, the 
two sons of Siva, Rama and Krishna, the two 
most important incarnations of Vishnu, or to 
female divinities, such as the wives of Siva and 
Vishnu. Brahma apparently needs no remem- 
brance; his work of creation is done, and nothing 



20 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

can undo it. Probably not more than three 
temples exist to his honor throughout India. On 
the other hand, the worship of Siva and Vishnu 
forms the very heart of the later Hindu religion. " 
(Datta, "The Desire of India," p. 85.) Of the 
moral and religious character of popular Hindu- 
ism, Hindu witnesses will be the best. Sukumar 
Haldar calls it "gloomy temples, blood-stained 
altars and hideous images," a "filthy veil" which 
hides the romantic scenery of the ancient faith 
that lies forgotten beyond. And he adds in his 
defence of the ancient faith, "No one has 
attempted to demonstrate the original monothe- 
istic form of the Hindu religion without raising 
against himself a host of bigots believing in the 
existence of 330 millions of deities. The very 
fact that the Brahman priests had at one time a 
predominant influence over state and society suffi- 
ciently accounts for the consequences that have 
followed. Such being the case, it is no wonder 
that foreigners in India and superficial observers 
should form a low estimate of the Hindu religion. 
Exoteric Hinduism to-day has scarcely a single 
element of unmixed good to boast of. The rites 
of religion and the ceremonials of society scarcely 
exhibit a single aspect which is in any way cal- 
culated to impress favorably a superficial foreign 
critic. These are deplorable facts. To these, 
indeed, are due in a great measure the thousand 
woes that are telling on the present generation of 
Hindus. . . . What is forced upon their notice 



HINDUISM 21 

(i. £., the notice of Englishmen in India) by daily 
experience gives them the idea that Hinduism is 
about the worst religion that ever claimed a fol- 
lowing." (Haldar, "Hinduism," pp. 4, 5.) 
"The Daily Hindu," one of the strongest native 
papers in India, the organ of the Orthodox 
Hindus of Madras, is even more plain spoken: 
"The glory has departed out of our religious 
institutions, and what once contributed to purify 
the minds of millions of men and women are now 
the grovelling ground of some of the most igno- 
rant and wretched of human beings . . . who 
merely wallow in a mire of voluptuous pastimes, 
wasting the pious contributions of the widow and 
the orphan, and breeding around them a whole 
host of idle, able-bodied vagabonds. The vast 
majority of these endowments are corrupt to the 
core. They are a festering mass of crime and 
vice and gigantic swindling. " (Quoted in "The 
Missionary Review of the World," April, 1896, 
p. 261.) 

"The Reis and Rayyet, " an influential paper 
of the Orthodox Hindus of Calcutta, speaks 
contemptuously of Mrs. Besant's ecstacies over 
the beauties of Hinduism, and says, "When an 
English lady, of decent culture, professes to be an 
admirer of Tantric mysticism and Krishna wor- 
ship, it behooves every well-wisher of the coun- 
try to tell her plainly that sensible men do not 
want her eloquence for gilding what is rotten. . . . 
If the Upanishads (commentaries on the Vedas, 



22 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

etc.) have a charm for Mrs. Besant, she is quite 
welcome to proclaim her views on the subject. 
But the Upanishads do not form any part of the 
religion of the Hindus as it is found in their 
everyday life. In actual practice they are either 
Sivites or Saktas or Krishna worshipers. In 
fact, abomination worship is the main ingredient 
of modern Hinduism, and we therefore ask Mrs. 
Besant to study the subject a little more carefully 
than she yet appears to have done. If she will 
follow our advice she may, provided she is 
sincere herself, admit sooner or later that the 
course she is now pursuing is fraught with mis- 
chief. " While of the Brahmanic priesthood 
"The Hindu" declares, "Profoundly ignorant as 
a class, and infinitely selfish, it is the mainstay of 
every unholy, immoral and cruel custom and 
superstition in our midst, from the wretched 
dancing girl, who insults the Deity by her exist- 
ence, to the pining child widow, whose every 
tear and every hair of whose head shall stand up 
against every one of us who tolerate it on the Day 
of Judgment; and of such a priestly class our 
women are the ignorant tools and helpless dupes. " 
It is not unnatural that Hindus themselves 
should speak thus, just as Christians are the 
severest critics of degraded forms of Christianity, 
but Christian students who are eager to view the 
religious phenomena of India with sympathy, 
have also to speak in sweeping terms of the great 
mass of Hinduism. "I verily believe," says Sir 



HINDUISM 23 

Monier Williams, "that the religion of the most 
of the Hindus is simply demonolatry. Men and 
women of all classes, except perhaps those edu- 
cated by ourselves, are perpetually penetrated 
with the idea that from the cradle to the grave 
they are being pursued and persecuted, not only 
by destructive demons, but by simple, mischievous 
imps and spiteful goblins. This, in my opinion, 
is the true explanation of the universal worship 
of Ganesa, lord of the demon hosts." (Quoted 
by Grant, "Religions of the World," p. 94.) 
And in the development of popular Hinduism, 
known as Saktism or Tantrism, the religion 
reaches its lowest and worst stage. The Saktas 
worship the female manifestation of the god Siva 
and the Tantras are their sacred books. The 
worship of the left-hand Saktas includes unmen- 
tionable orgies and their Tantras are too evil to 
be translated. (Hume, "Missions from the 
Modern View," pp. 72-74.) 

Swami Vivakananda himself, in addressing The Tantras. 
Bengalis in Calcutta, characterized the Vamachara 
Tantras thus: "Give up this filthy Vamachara 
that is killing your country. . . . When I enter 
my own country (meaning Bengal), with all its 
boast of culture, it is a most disgraceful, hellish 
place I find, when I see how much the Vamachara 
has entered our society. These Vamachara sects 
are honeycombing our society in Bengal, and it 
is those who carry on the most horrible debauchery 
at night who in the day time come out and 



24 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

preach most loudly about 'achara' (conduct), 
and in this way they are backed by the most 
dreadful books. They are ordered by the books 
to do these things. You know it who are in 
Bengal. The Bengali Sastras are the Vamachara 
Tantras. They are published by the cart loads, 
and poison the minds of your children instead of 
teaching them your Srutis (/. £., the Vedas). Do 
you not feel, fathers of Calcutta, a shame that 
such horrible stuff as these Vamachara Tantras, 
with translations, too, should be put into the 
hands of your children, boys and girls, and their 
minds poisoned, and that they should be brought 
up with the idea that these are the Sastras of the 
Hindus?" ("Colombo to Almora," p. 260. 
Quoted in "The Indian Standard," March 16, 
1901, p. 7.) And it is the Tantras, not all of 
which we may be thankful are immoral or vile, 
that have shaped popular Hinduism. "Apart 
from the Srouta and Smarta rituals," said 
Vivakananda, "all the forms of the popular reli- 
gion from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin have 
been taken from the Tantras, and they direct the 
worship of the Saktas, the Saivas, the Vaishnavas, 
and all others." Of popular Hinduism then it 
can only be said that it is idolatry and demon 
worship, and that in its lower forms it is the 
uncleanness against which Christianity has ever 
been so uncompromising, and against which are 
barred forever the gates of that City wherein 
there shall in no wise enter anything unclean, or 
he that maketh an abomination and a lie. 



HINDUISM 25 

3. Reformed Hinduism. Again and again in Reformed 
the history of India, when polytheistic and panthe- Hinduism, 
istic notions have been carried to extremes, 
reformers have arisen to recall the people to 
simple monotheism. The early Vaishnava 
Reformers of the twelfth, thirteenth, fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries taught "the existence of one 
supreme personal God of infinite power, wisdom 
and goodness, the Maker and Preserver of all 
things, a God whom they called Vishnu, and 
whom they believed to be distinct from the 
human soul and the material world." The 
Vaishnava worship has led almost necessarily to 
corruption, however. Its doctrine of avatars and 
the character of the deity who was incarnate in 
them were not helpful, and "viler practices as a 
part of religion have flourished among the fol- 
lowers of Vishnu than among almost any other 
class of religionists." In the sixteenth century 
a great monotheistic reaction came under the 
leadership of Kabir. His negative principles 
were clear and useful. He "discouraged the 
worship of all the Hindu gods and also the 
observance of Hindu rites and ceremonies of 
every description, whether orthodox or schismat- 
ical," but like the modern Arya Samaj and the 
Behais in Persia, his followers were allowed to 
refrain from acting upon their principles when it 
was advantageous to do so. Kabir, moreover, 
was very indefinite in his positive declarations of 
faith. After Kabir came the Sikh reform under 



26 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Nanak, who, like Kabir, had been undoubtedly 
influenced by the stern monotheism of the Moham- 
medans, and both he and Kabir strove to fuse 
Hindus and Moslems in a common belief in one 
only God. This effort naturally failed, and 
Govind made it finally impossible when he turned 
the Sikh sect into a nation, and established a 
political dominion, wrested from Islam, in the 
Punjab. 

These movements did not affect Bengal, in 
which lived the three great leaders of the Reform 
Movement of the last century. Their movement 
has its logical connection, however, with the 
same spirit of reaction from popular orthodox 
Hinduism to a purer faith which found expression 
in Kabir and Nanak, for in the sixteenth century 
the Vaishnava movement was inaugurated in 
Bengal by Chaitanya, a singularly attractive 
character, who went about preaching salvation 
by faith. It was the analogue of Luther's 
Reformation. He professed to oppose the 
Saktism that was then prevalent in Bengal, and 
he taught devotion of the human soul to Vishnu, 
symbolized under the figure of human love. 
That and the licentious antinomianism, which 
was the inevitable consequence of his unbalanced 
doctrine, led to great degeneracy in some of the 
Vaishnava sects of Bengal. But his reform 
remained as a memory, at least, of the effort of 
an earnest man to get back of the idols and the 
form of his faith to the one living God. 



HINDUISM . 27 

Ram Mohun Roy was the founder of modern R am Mohu 
religious reform in India. He was born in 1772, Roy. 
and was brought up in one of these Vaishnava 
sects in Bengal. Each morning he was accus- 
tomed to read a chapter in the Bhagavata Purana, 
the Vaishnava Bible, and being a lad of honest 
and careful mind, he found himself unable to 
accept it, and was led to turn back to the Vedic 
system — especially as expressed in the Upani shads. 
He studied Sanskrit, Arabic and Hebrew so as to 
compare the Hindu, Moslem and Christian Scrip- 
tures. Monier Williams says of him that he 
"was the first earnest-minded investigator of the 
science of religion that the world has produced. 
From his earliest years he displayed an eagerness 
to become an unbiased student of all the religions 
of the globe. His sole aim in such studies was 
to seek out religious truth for himself with per- 
fect fairness and impartiality." These studies 
made him more and more dissatisfied with the 
idolatry and social customs of Hinduism. 

And the situation at the time in Bengal was 
such as to awaken the concern of such an honest 
and earnest man. Immorality and corruption 
were general and revolting. Socially the. condi- 
tions were equally bad. The caste system was 
rigid as stone. "The horrible rites of suttee and 
infanticide were the order of the day. There 
were indeed many instances of true suttees . . . 
but it should not therefore be forgotten that in a 
great many instances the suttee was the victim of 



28 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

her greedy relatives, and in more, of rash words 
spoken in the first fit of grief, and of the vanity 
of her kindred who considered her shrinking from 
the first resolve an indelible disgrace." "Many 
a horrible murder was thus committed, the cries 
and shrieks of the poor suttee being drowned by 
the sounds of tom-toms, and her struggles made 
powerless by her being pressed down with bam- 
boos. The condition of the Hindu female in 
those days was truly pitiable. Education among 
females was unknown. Kulinism, polygamy and 
everyday oppression made the life of the Hindu 
female unbearable. Hindu society, with caste, 
polygamy, Kulinism, suttee, infanticide, and 
other evils, was rotten to its core. Morality was 
at a very low ebb. Men spent their time in vice 
and idleness, and in social broils and party 
quarrels. As to education among the people, of 
what even the Muktubs could impart there was 
little. What little learning there was was confined 
to a few Brahmans, and it was in the main a vain 
and useless learning. Ignorance and superstition 
reigned supreme over the length and breadth of 
the country. There was darkness over the land, 
and no man knew when it would be dispelled." 
(Introduction to Ram Mohun Roy's English 
Works, Vol. I, pp. vi, vii.) 

Ram Mohun Roy felt the shame of all this. 
He felt also the deepening influence of Western 
civilization as it was represented in the British 
Government in India and in the Western educa- 



HINDUISM 29 

tion which was beginning to be offered to the 
people. The movement which he began sprang 
even at the outset from, and as years went by 
became almost the direct product of, the innu- 
merable dissolving agencies which Christian 
Government and Christian religion introduced 
into India. Ram Mohun Roy began by attacking 
idolatry on the ground that it -was not sanctioned 
by the Vedas. On the same ground he supported 
the movement against widow burning. On caste 
he compromised. He strongly supported Alex- 
ander Duff in establishing his educational work, 
and he defended its Christian basis, and wrote a 
book on "The Precepts of Jesus, the Guide to 
Peace and Happiness." In a letter prefixed to 
one of his later works he says, "The consequence 
of my long and uninterrupted researches into reli- 
gious truth has been that I have found the 
doctrines of Christ more conducive to moral 
principles and better adapted for the use of 
rational beings than any other which have come 
to my knowledge." 

The most notable step taken by Ram Mohun Brakmo 
Roy was the organization in Calcutta, in 1830, Samaj. 
of the Brahma Sabha, or Society of Brahma, the 
one self-existent God of Hinduism. This was 
not intended to be a new sect or church, but 
simply a place of pure monotheistic worship. 
"The trust deed of the building," which was 
endowed, "laid down that it was to be used as a 



30 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

place of meeting for the worship of the Eternal, 
Unsearchable and Immutable Being who is the 
Author and Preserver of the Universe; that no 
graven image, statue or sculpture, carving, paint- 
ing, picture, portrait, or likeness of anything 
shall be admitted within the building; that no 
sacrifices shall be offered there ; that nothing 
recognized as an object of worship by other men 
should be spoken of contemptuously there; and 
that no sermon be delivered but such as would 
have a tendency to promote piety, morality and 
charity." This was the first Theistic Church 
planted in India, and in it for the first time 
Hindus united in public worship and prayer. It 
was the first sign of "the greatest change that has 
ever passed over the Hindu mind." 
Debendranatk After Ram Mohun Roy's death in England, 
Tagore. when he was on a visit, the Brahma Sabha or 

Brahmo Samaj, as it came to be called, became 
Hinduized for a time, and then was revivified 
under the influence of Debendranath Tagore, a 
wealthy friend of Ram Mohun Roy, who had 
received a skeptical education and led a dissolute 
life, but had then passed through a real re- 
ligious experience and taken hold of the 
Brahmo Samaj, which was disorganized and 
impotent, and who gave it definiteness of form 
and a positive foundation in the Brahmic Cov- 
enant, which he made the basis of member- 
ship: — 



% - 


,"*\pf 




^aB 


- 


''-■'lii 




- 


, 


: .l 


-<4 ; 



HINDUISM 31 

Om 
I herewith embrace the Brahmic faith. 

1st Vow. I will worship, through love of Him and 
performance of the works He loveth, God the Creator, 
the Preserver, and the Destroyer, the Giver of Salva- 
tion, the Omniscient, the Omnipresent, the Blissful, the 
Good, the Formless, the One without a second. 

2d Vow. I will worship no created object as the 
Creator. 

3d Vow. Except the day of sickness or of tribulation, 
every day, the mind being undisturbed, I will engage it 
with love and veneration in God. 

4th Vow. I will exert to perform righteous deeds. 

5th Vow. I will be careful to abstain from vicious 
deeds. 

6th Vow. If through the influence of passion, I com- 
mit any vice, then wishing redemption from it, I will 
make myself cautious not to do it again. 

7th Vow. Every year and on the occasion of every 
happy domestic event of mine, I will bestow gifts upon 
the Brahmo Samaj. 

Grant me, O God, power to observe the duties of this 
great faith. 

Om 
One only without a second. 
Under Debendranath the Christian element fell 
into the background, and Christ's name was 
debarred on the ground that some people called 
him God. The emphasis laid by Ram Mohun 
Roy on the Upanishads was transferred to the 
Vedic hymns, which were made the real authori- 
tative Scripture. But this led to a further step. 
The Vedic hymns themselves, it was soon felt, 
were not a valid authority, and the Samaj fell 
back on external nature and internal intuition. 



32 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

KesW> The next stage in the development was taken 

Gmnder by Keshub Chunder Sen, who, coming into the 

S en - leadership of the Samaj about 1860, dropped 

nature, rested boldly on intuition as the only basis 
of authority, and advanced courageously to break 
with caste and with the Hindu restraints upon 
woman. A rupture in the Samaj resulted, and 
Keshub founded a vigorous new society practic- 
ally on the basis of Unitarian Christianity. The 
following was the substance of the system of 
doctrine of the new Brahmo Samaj : — 

God is the first cause of the universe. By His will 
He created all objects out of nothing, and continually 
upholds them. He is spirit, not matter. • He is per- 
fect, infinite, all merciful, all holy. He is our Father, 
Preserver, Master, King and Saviour. 

The soul is immortal. Death is only the dissolution 
of the body. There is no new birth on earth after 
death; the future life is a continuation and development 
of the present life. The men that now live are the 
embryos of the men that are to be. 

The true Scriptures are two — the volume of nature 
and the natural intuitions implanted in the mind. The 
wisdom, power and mercy of the Creator are written 
on the universe. All ideas about immortality and 
morality are primary convictions rooted in the constitu- 
tion of man. 

God Himself never becomes man by putting on a 
human body. His divinity dwells in every man, and is 
displayed more vividly in some ; as in Moses, Jesus 
Christ, Mohammed, Nanak, Chaitanya, and some other 
great teachers who appeared at special times and con- 
ferred vast benefits on the world. They are entitled to 
universal gratitude and love. 



HINDUISM 33 

The Brahma religion is distinct from all other systems 
of religion ; jet it is the essence of all. It is not hostile 
to other creeds. What is true in them it accepts. It is 
based on the constitution of man and is, therefore, 
eternal and universal. It is not confined to age or 
country. 

All mankind are of one brotherhood. The Brahma 
religion recognizes no distinction between high and low- 
caste. It is the aim of this religion to bind all mankind 
into one family. 

Duties are of four kinds : (1) Duties towards God — 
such as belief in Him, love, worship and service ; 

(2) Duties towards self — such as preservation of bodily 
health, acquisition of knowledge, sanctification of soul ; 

(3) Duties towards others — such as veracity, justice, 
gratitude, the promotion of the welfare of all mankind ; 

(4) Duties towards animals and inferior creatures — such 
as kind treatment. 

Every sinner must suffer the consequences of his own 
sins sooner or later, in this world or the next. Man 
must labor after holiness by the worship of God, by 
subjugation of the passions, by repentance, by the study 
of nature and of good books, by good company and by 
solitary contemplation. These will lead through the 
action of God's grace to salvation. 

Salvation is a deliverance of the soul from the root 
of corruption and moral disease, and its perpetual 
growth in purity. Such growth continues through all 
eternity, and the soul becomes more and more godly 
and happy in Him who is the fountain of infinite holi- 
ness and joy. The companionship of God is the Indian 
Theists' heaven. 

There were times in the next twenty years 
when it seemed that Keshub Chunder Sen might 
come clearly out into the Christian faith, but 
there were weaknesses in the man and fundamen- 



34 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

tal defects in his doctrine, and he passed away a 
stranger to the truths to which he had come so 
near. In his last years he played into the hands 
of the champions of orthodox Hinduism, with all 
its idolatries and corruptions ; but it is a pleasant 
thing that his final public address, "Asia's 
Message to Europe," in 1883, with much folly, 
yet included words like these: "All India must 
believe that Christ is the Son of God. Nay, more 
than this, I will make myself bold to prophesy all 
India will one day acknowledge Jesus Christ as 
the atonement, the universal atonement for all 
mankind. . . . He has given His precious blood 
for all of us, whether we believe it or not. . . . 
He has done His work, let us do ours. Let us 
believe that He has died for you and me, and the 
atonement on our side is completed. Fellow 
countrymen, be ye reconciled through Him!" 
The truth of God is in these words, whether or 
no Keshub Chunder Sen saw it with clear eyes 
and embraced it with the simple heart of true 
faith. And however weak he showed himself, 
and whatever harm he wrought, no man without 
honesty and earnestness in his heart could break 
with his ancestral faith as he did and struggle as 
he struggled to persuade his countrymen to take a 
better way to God than that which leads to the 
temple and the idols made with men's hands. 

The Brahmo Samaj was the result of the 
impact of Christianity on Hinduism. It was 
truthfully called a "half way house" between the 



HINDUISM 35 

two religions. It has now quite lost its im- 
portance as a separate movement, but it is a vivid 
illustration of what is taking place now inside of 
Hinduism. Some of those who joined the Samaj 
passed forward into the Christian faith. But on 
the other side, Hinduism perceived that it must 
again modify itself to meet the new conditions, 
and to-day there are only a few Samajes which 
represent any real breach with Hinduism. Some 
have swung back to the Vedanta, and inside 
Hinduism a place has been made for men who 
wish to take the religious and philosophical 
attitude of the earlier Brahmo Samaj, and who 
can now do so without leaving the expansive and 
ever adaptive system of their ancestors. 

The reform movement in Northern India took a Arya 
very different form from that taken in Bengal. Samaj. 
In the north the reform society has been the Arya 
Samaj, founded by Dayanand Saraswati, the son 
of a Gujarati Brahman, who was born in 1825, 
and becoming dissatisfied with popular idolatry, 
left his father's home and wandered over Northern 
India as a fakir, seeking knowledge and sal- 
vation. He became increasingly convinced that 
the true hope for his countrymen lay in a return 
to the teachings of the Vedas, and some time 
before 1860 he "came to a strong determination 
to give his life fully to the restoration of his 
countrymen to their former state of happiness and 
prosperity." He soon began disputations with 
the Hindu pundits, seeking "to persuade them to 



36 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

abandon their old teaching, accept nothing but 
the Vedas, and join him in leading their country- 
men back to their former state." Failing to 
persuade the pundits, and also failing of success 
in his next plan of establishing schools where the 
pupils were supported and taught gratuitously, 
he adopted the plan of traveling about, teaching 
and establishing Samajes. He died in Rajputana 
in 1882. The principles of the Arya Samaj, as 
set forth in the Arya catechisms and tracts, are as 
follows : — 

1. God is the Fountain of all true knowledge, and 
the primeval Cause of all things knowable. 

2. Worship is alone due to God Who is All-true, 
All-knowledge, All-beatitude, Incorporeal, Almighty, 
Just, Merciful, Unbegotten, Infinite, Unchangeable, 
without a Beginning, Incomparable, the Support and 
the Lord of all, All-pervading, Omniscient, Imperisha- 
ble, Immortal, Exempt from fear, Eternal, Holy and the 
Cause of the universe. 

3. The Vedas are the Books of true knowledge, and 
it is the paramount duty of every Arya to read or hear 
them read ; to teach and preach them to others. 

4. An Arya should always be ready to accept truth 
and renounce untruth when discovered. 

5. Truth arrived at, after consummate deliberation, 
should be his guiding principle in all actions. 

6. The primary object of the Samaj is to do good to 
the world by improving the physical, intellectual, spirit- 
ual, moral and social condition of mankind. 

7. Due love for all and appreciation of Justice, an 
Arya should manifest in his behavior towards others. 

8. He should endeavor to diffuse knowledge and dis- 
pel ignorance. 



HINDUISM S7 

9. He should not be content with his own improve- 
ment, but look for it in others. 

10. In matters which affect the general social well- 
being of our race he ought to discard all difference and 
not allow his individuality to interfere, but in strictly 
personal matters every one may have his own way. 

The sole authority with the Aryas is the 
Vedas. All the problems of life, they hold, are 
solved by the Vedas, and by the Vedas all modern 
discoveries and the inventions of modern science 
have been anticipated. The Aryas observe caste, 
but denounce it; they conform to orthodox Hindu 
ceremonies of marriage and burials, but inveigh 
against them. They have been bitterly anti- 
Christian and anti-Brahmo, very aggressive in 
their propaganda, and very nationalistic. Their 
revolt in principle against orthodox Hinduism, 
however inconsistent their practice, was one more 
distinct fruit of Christian influence upon India. 
For the present they have retreated to the Vedas 
as the one source of spiritual truth, and as essen- 
tial to the development of Hindu nationality. 
But they will inevitably learn, as the Brahmos 
learned, that the Vedas cannot satisfy, and they 
are already learning that sedition is not nation- 
alism. "One notable outcome of the unrest in 
India," writes a thoughtful missionary, "is that 
the active opposition on the part of the Arya 
Samaj has in great measure ceased. This is no 
doubt due in some measure to the attitude of the 
government towards the Arya Samaj, whose 



38 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



leaders have been detected as also leaders of the 
sedition movement in the Punjab. But that is 
not the only reason. There have been many in 
the Arya Samaj who are sincere in their effort to 
re-establish the old Hindu faith. The more such 
men strive to find rest in the Vedas the more 
surely will they fail. Some of these have come 
out and have confessed that rest can only be found 
in Jesus Christ. We may, therefore, anticipate 
the downfall of the Arya Samaj movement as a 
religious movement, and that more members will 
come over to the Christian ranks." 
Reform These organized movements of reform are the 

Due to fruit of Christianity. Mr. Madhava Rao, C.I.E., 

Christianity. on departing from Mysore in 1904 to become 
Dewan of Travancore, said to the missionaries 
of the province who had come to say good-by: — 

Gentlemen, you know well how great is my admira- 
tion for the English civilization, which has done so 
much for- India. It is the fashion sometimes with some 
of our young men, and I think they are to some extent 
right, to say that everything that Christianity may bring 
to us is to be found, more or less, in our own religious 
books. But they forget that our religion had lost much 
of its vitality and had failed to influence conduct either 
personally, socially or politically. It is to the impact 
of fresh civilization, and the operation of vivifying and 
vigorous ideas, that we owe the reawakening that is to 
be found from one end of India to another. It is to 
Christian influences that we are indebted for the revival 
of the Hindu religion in the form of the Brahmo Samaj, 
and there have been other revivals also more or less 
over the country. Even as regards the European civili- 



HINDUISM 39 

zation and progress, it is, I believe, no less an authority 
than Benjamin Kidd, who says that the impelling force 
of the modern progress is to be found in the cardinal 
principles of Christianity. As I said before, as far as 
India is concerned, Ave should have been moving in the 
old lines and in the old grooves but for the new ideas 
brought by the missionaries. I will instance only a few 
points regarding which our conceptions have been recast 
and elevated in the light of the new religion. At least 
these ideas could not have been got in such an emphatic 
form from our own religion and our own past civiliza- 
tion. Where can we find ideas about the sanctity of 
human life, about the dignity of man, and about equality 
of all men before the Law but in the Christian Scriptures, 
made familiar to us in the English Laws under which we 
live and in the philosophy and poetry of the West? 
Another idea that we owe to Christianity is the respect 
due to women. For all these we owe a debt of grati- 
tude to the missionaries. They have been the pioneers 
of education in this country. They have brought us 
fresh ideas, they have given us higher conceptions of 
life, and our duties and responibilities as citizens and as 
men. It only remains for me to wish every success to 
the missionaries in the noble and godly labors in the 
cause of moral and spiritual regeneration of this land. 

But the organized reform movements represent Christianity's 
but a small part of the influence of Christianity Pervasive 
upon India's religious thought and life. Entirely Influence, 
new moral and spiritual ideals are penetrating 
the ancient forms. The very names of old Hindu 
gods are falling into disuse, and a completely 
new idea of God is coming to India. "Into the 
midst of the pantheism of ages there has slowly 
penetrated, through the medium of Christian 
teaching, the idea of a personal and holy God, 



40 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

the foundation truth of all real religion." 
(Slater, "The Higher Hinduism," p. 18.) Islam 
did not work such a change in the religious 
thought of India. With every practical advantage, 
and with an opportunity of a thousand years, 
Islam had made less impression on the religious 
thought of Hinduism than Christianity has made 
in three generations. Intelligent Hindus now 
think of their own religions in terms and with 
understandings of words which were utterly 
unknown to their fathers, and which they owe to 
Christianity alone. (Morrison, "New Ideas in 
India.") The great intellectual movement of the 
present day in India, not excepting the revived 
Vedanta, is the effort to read Christianity into 
Hinduism, and to gather the national fruitage of 
Christianity without the revolution of personal 
regeneration or the disruption of national conver- 
sion. Was there ever a more wonderful testimony 
to the superiority of Christianity, or a more 
appealing confession of need? For, coming so 
far, India must come farther. "All over India," 
said Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall when he returned 
from India the last time, "are men and women 
unprepared to identify themselves with any Chris- 
tian denomination to whom the popular forms of 
the ancient faith have become inadequate, if not 
distasteful, and for whom the name of Jesus 
Christ and the distinctive truths connected with 
that name for the redemption of individuals and 
the reconstruction of the social order are taking 
on new attractiveness and value." 



HINDUISM 41 

These forms of religion which Christianity Hinduism 
meets to-day in India all show the moral and Insufficient, 
social insufficiency of Hinduism. "A religious 
system," said the Report of Commission IV on 
The Missionary Message in Relation to Non- 
Christian Religions, at the Edinburgh Confer- 
ence, "must be judged by its moral and social 
results. This is an axiom for all who believe 
that religion is the fundamental thing in human 
nature. 'The tree is known by its fruits.' This 
is true everywhere, but it is especially true of 
India where the problems of religion have for 
thousands of years been the supreme concern of 
the greatest minds. Our correspondents trace the 
manifold ills of Indian life, the immense outgrowth 
of mendicant asceticism, the petrification of 
society in the caste system, the abuse of child- 
marriage, and the manifold hardships of widow- 
hood to the same deep root as that which is 
manifest in all the infamies of popular idolatry — 
the defective conception of God, the turning away 
of the human heart from its Father in mistrust 
and fear, the unbelief which is the root of all sin. 
The pathological analysis is convincing and 
complete." 

The evidence is absolute against popular Hin- 
duism. As Bishop Caldwell says: — 

The duties of life are never inculcated in any Hindu 
temple. The discharge of those duties is never pre- 
sented as enjoined by the gods, nor are any prayers ever 
offered in any temple for help to enable the worshipers 



42 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

to discharge those duties aright. . . . Hence we often 
see religion going in the one direction and morality in 
another. We meet with a moral Hindu who has broken 
altogether away from religion; and what is still more 
common, yet still more extraordinary, we meet with a 
devout Hindu who lives a flagrantly immoral life. In 
the latter case, no person sees any inconsistency between 
the immorality and the devoutness. 

And not only is popular Hinduism morally and 
socially insufficient, but so also is the higher 
Hinduism, and its whole present attitude is a 
confession of this. "If it looks to the revival of 
the national faith in regard to religion, it yet 
looks to the West for its social and political 
ideals. In this strange divergence it confesses its 
utter weakness as a social force; that there is 
nothing in its ancient institutions to revive which 
will fit the nation for its keen struggle for exist- 
ence ; but that for the elaboration of a better order 
of society it must look outside itself. This sev- 
erance of religion from sociology, this failure of 
Hinduism as a reforming agency, a regenerator 
of society, an instrument of progress, robs it of 
half its strength, and encourages the Christian 
advocate to hope that, as the thoughtful men of 
India come to study the sociological results of 
Christ's religion in the West, and see it to be the 
pioneer of all true progress, the only effective 
agency in destroying the old evils, they may be 
led to pay a deeper respect to its underlying and 
distinctive truths.'* (Slater, "The Higher Hin- 
duism, " pp. 15, 16.) 



HINDUISM 43 

It will suffice to indicate four of the fundamen- Deficiencies of 
tal deficiencies of Hinduism: — Hinduism. 

1. Hinduism rests on a false social principle, the Caste, 
principle not of brotherhood and of equality, but 
of caste. This social principle is the essential, 
unifying principle of Hinduism. As Guru 
Prasad Sen says in his "Introduction to the 
Study of Hinduism," "Hinduism is not, and has 
never been, a religious organization. It is a 
pure social system, imposing on those who are 
Hindus the observance of certain social forms, 
and not the profession of particular religious 
beliefs. It is perfectly optional with a Hindu to 
choose from any one of the different religious 
creeds with which the Sastras abound; he may 
choose to have a faith and a creed, if he wants a 
creed, or to do without one ; he may be an 
atheist, a deist, a monotheist, or a polytheist, a 
believer in the Vedas or Sastras, or a skeptic as 
regards their authority, and his position as a 
Hindu cannot be questioned by anybody because 
of his beliefs or unbeliefs, so long as he conforms 
to social rules." These social rules cover the 
whole life of the people and culminate in caste 
and the Hindu status of woman. As to caste, 
whatever may be said in its behalf or of its past 
history, let one speak whose authority on the sub- 
ject cannot be gainsaid, His Highness the Gaek- 
war of Baroda: — 

The evils of caste cover the whole range of social 
life. It hampers the life of the individual with a vast 



44 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

number of petty rules and observances which have no 
meaning. It cripples him in his relations with his 
family, in his marriage, in the education of his chil- 
dren, and especially in his life. It weakens the eco- 
nomic position by attempting to confine him to particular 
trades, by preventing him from learning the culture of 
the West, and by giving him an exaggerated view of his 
knowledge and importance. It cripples his professional 
life by increasing distrust, treachery and jealousy, 
hampering a free use of others' abilities, and ruins his 
social life by increasing exclusiveness, restricting the 
opportunities of social intercourse and preventing that 
intellectual development on which the prosperity of any 
class most depends. In the wider spheres of life, in 
municipal or local affairs, it destroys all hope of local 
patriotism, of work for the common good, by thrusting 
forward the interest of the caste as opposed to those of 
the community, and by making combined efforts for the 
common good exceedingly difficult. But its most seri- 
ous offense is its effect on national life and national 
unity. It intensifies local dissensions and diverse 
interests, and obscures great national ideals and interests 
which should be those of every caste and people, and 
renders the country disunited and incapable of improv- 
ing its defects or of availing itself of the advantages 
which it should gain from contact with the civilization 
of the West. It robs us of our humanity by insisting 
on the degradation of some of our fellow men who are 
separated from us by no more than the accident of birth. 
It prevents the noble and charitable impulses which 
have done so much for the improvement and mutual 
benefit of European Society. It prevents our making 
the most of all the various abilities of our diverse com- 
munities ; it diminishes all our emotional activities and 
intellectual resources. Again, it is the most conserva- 
tive element in our society and the steady enemy to all 
reform. Every reformer who has endeavored to secure 



HINDUISM 45 

the advance of our society has been driven out of it by 
the operation of caste. By its rigidity, it preserves 
ignorant superstitions and clings to the past, while it 
does nothing to make those inevitable changes which 
nature is ever pressing on us more easy and more 
possible. 

If Hinduism is caste and caste is this, who can 
fail to see the duty of Christianity toward 
Hinduism? 

2. The inferiority of woman has been brought Tke Inferior- 
as a principle into the laws and institutions of ity of 
Hinduism. Much can be found in the Hindu Woman, 
sacred literature in praise of woman, but for each 
such sentiment two can be cited which degrade 
woman to an inferior place and deny her the 
rights without which the moral health of society 
is impaired. Passing by the great mass of testi- 
mony which can be cited from the Hindu Scrip- 
tures and from Hindu reformers, not to speak of 
the unanswerable testimony of the British statute 
books proclaiming as criminal practice after 
practice which Hinduism defended and for which 
it fought in the name of the integrity of religion, 
it will suffice to quote again the calm words of 
the Gaekwar of Baroda : — 

It is not necessary for me to dwell upon all those 
familiar questions which cluster round the question of 
the status of women. I would merely point out that 
what we may most legitimately object against each is 
that they involve a bad economy of social forces. 

Early marriage, especially now that the checks on 
early consummation are breaking down, must increase 



46 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

death and disease among the mothers, swell infant 
mortality and injure the physique of the race. It inter- 
feres, also, with the pro.per education of women. 

A too strict purdah mutilates social life and makes 
its current dull and sluggish by excluding the brighten- 
ing influence of women. 

By the denial of education to women we deprive our- 
selves of half the potential force of the nation, deny 
to our children the advantage of having cultured 
mothers, and by stunting the faculties of the mother 
affect injuriously the heredity of the race. We create, 
moreover, a gulf of mental division in the home, and 
put a powerful drag on progress by making the women 
a great conservative force that clings to everything old, 
however outworn or irrational. 

The existence side by side of customs like polygamy 
and the prohibition of widow remarriage similarly 
shows a bad organization of society. The one keeps up 
an unduly low standard of morality among men, the 
other demands an impossibly high standard from 
women. To enforce the standard we suppress our feel- 
ings of humanity and affection and inflict severities 
upon widows to keep their vitality low and make them 
less attractive; yet the impossibility remains and the 
laws of nature we have ignored avenge themselves ; for, 
in spite of our harsh measures, we fail to preserve even 
an ordinary standard of morality in this much ill-treated 
class. 

We do well, therefore, in protesting against these 
evils and striving for their alteration. 

We should, however, realize where the evil lies. It 
is in the lowering of our ideas about women and the 
relations of the sexes. 

It is this ideal of woman which Christianity must 
raise for India. 

3. Religion and morality in India are both 



HINDUISM 47 

vitiated by the pantheistic idea of God which A False 
rules Indian thought and which has alwa) T s Thought of 
triumphed over every reforming protest in behalf God. 
of theism. "Pantheism," says Flint in "Anti- 
Theistic Theories," "is the theory which regards 
all finite things as merely aspects, modifications, 
or parts of one eternal and self-existent being; 
which views all material objects, and all particu- 
lar minds, as necessarily derived from a single 
infinite substance. The one absolute substance — 
the one all-comprehensive being — it calls God. 
Thus God, according to it, is all that is, and 
nothing is which is not essentially included in, 
or which has not been necessarily evolved out of, 
God." This conception of God and man cannot 
nourish a religion of affectionate devotion. "In- 
stead of love and communion in love, it can only 
commend to us the contemplation of an object 
which is incomprehensible, devoid of all affec- 
tions, and indifferent to all actions. When feel- 
ings like love, gratitude, and trust are expressed 
in the hymns and prayers of Hindu worship, it is 
in consequence of a virtual denial of the prin- 
ciples of pantheism." 

And just as pantheism is fatal to true religion, 
so also is it fatal to morals, if it is allowed to 
work out its logical consequence. It strikes at 
the very roots of morality. Indian pantheism 
teaches that sin is neither real in itself nor 
capable of reaching to what is real in man; that 
it is but a creation of ignorance; that "though 



48 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

the soul plunge itself in sin, like a sword in 
water, it shall in no wise cling to it;" that the 
distinctions of right and wrong are mere appear- 
ances which will vanish as soon as the dream 
state of life is dispelled. The existence of funda- 
mental moral distinctions is contradicted or ignored 
by pantheism. Hinduism has denied the reality 
of the eternal and necessary distinction between 
righteousness and sin. It admits that there is a 
difference, but the difference is not inherent and 
essential, but only accidental and illusory, exist- 
ing not in facts but in our conceptions, imagined 
under the power of illusion. As a South Indian 
song puts it: — 

To them that fully know the heavenly truth. 
There is no good or ill ; nor anything 
To be desired, unclean or purely clean. 

Where God is seen, there can be nought but God, 
His heart can have no place for fear or shame ; 
For caste, uncleanness, hate, or wandering thought, 
Impure or pure, are all alike to Him. 

Sin is not one of the deep convictions of Hindu- 
ism. There is no personal God. There is no 
burdening sense of personal responsibility. Men 
are God. u We are the children of God, the 
sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect 
beings," said Swami Vivakananda at the Par- 
liament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. "Ye, 
divinities on earth, sinners? It is a sin to call a 
man so; it is a standing libel on human nature." 
It is not a careless charge against Hinduism to 



HINDUISM 49 

accuse it of this fundamental ethical failure. 
Naryan Sheshadri, one of the most notable 
Christian converts from Hinduism, ascribed his 
conversion to the alarm he felt on discovering 
that Hindu philosophy was destroying all sense 
of moral responsibility. "Will you please give 
a vivid contrast between Hinduism and Chris- 
tianity?" writes a correspondent to "Epiphany," 
the paper of the Oxford Mission of the Brethren 
of the Epiphany in Calcutta; and the paper 
replies, "Christianity teaches men to distinguish 
vice from virtue; Hinduism does not. " ("Epiph- 
any," Feb. 6, 1909.) Not only has Hinduism 
failed in this, but vice and impurity have actually 
found a home within the religion. Dancing girls 
were devoted to the gods as prostitutes, and 
temples were filled with abominable sculpture, so 
that when obscene pictures or representations were 
forbidden by the penal code, in the following 
article: — 

292. Whosoever sells or distributes, imports or 
prints for sale or hire, or wilfully exhibits to public 
view, any obscene book, pamphlet, paper, drawing, 
painting, representation or figure, or attempts or offers 
so to do, shall be punished with imprisonment of either 
description for a term which may extend to three 
months, or with fine, or with both, 

it was necessary to make the following exception : — 

This section does not extend to any representation 
sculptured, engraved, painted or otherwise represented 
on or in any temple or on any car used for the convey- 
ance of idols, or kept or used for any religious purpose. 



50' THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

India needs anew conception of God and of right- 
eousness which will make its temples fountains 
of purity. 
Idolatry and 4. And not only is Hinduism deficient in its 
Gods of Bad philosophy of God. It is deficient, also, in its 
Character. attempts to represent Him. Its pantheism is 
allied to the lower polytheism. Popularly, it is 
a religion of idolatry and the gods whom it 
worships are not good gods. 

It is often said that Hindu idolatry is not real 
worship of idols, but is a true though ignorant 
worship of the one God beyond the idols. But 
Ram Mohun Roy knew what the facts were and 
are. "I have observed," said he, "that both in 
their writings and conversation, many Europeans 
feel a wish to palliate and soften the features of 
Hindu idolatry, and are inclined to indicate that 
all objects of worship are considered by their 
votaries as emblematical representations of the 
supreme Divinity. If this were indeed the case, 
I might perhaps be led into some examination of 
the subject, but the truth is, the Hindus of the 
present day have no such views of the subject, 
but firmly believe in the real existence of the 
innumerable gods and goddesses, who possess, in 
their own departments, full and independent 
power; and to propitiate them, and not the true 
God, are temples erected and ceremonies per- 
formed. . . . Neither do they regard the images 
of these gods merely in the light of instruments 
for elevating the mind to the conception of those 



HINDUISM 51 

supposed beings ; they are simply in themselves 
made objects of worship." And this actual 
idolatry, of which India is full, is a shame and 
curse to religion. The Arya Samaj catechism 
denounces it. "Idolatry, " it says, "is a folly 
that blunts one's mind and faculties and never 
induces him to make onward and spiritual 
progress, but tends to contempt and scorn being 
thrown at Hindus by the foreigners. As long as 
British, Romans and Grecians were idolators, 
they could acquire no civilization and make no 
scientific and intellectual progress. The same 
may be said as regards Hindus. Unless they 
give up idolatry they will never rise, be civilized 
and improve in their social and intellectual con- 
dition, and will by no means acquire the wisdom 
of which the Aryas, the adorers of one God, were 
proud. ' ' 

And not only is the idolatry of India real 
idolatry, but the characters of the gods are bad. 
The principal deities, as Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, 
Indra, Krishna, are represented in the sacred 
books as guilty of theft, lying, intoxication, 
adultery, murder. India needs a good and pure 
God, such as she has not had for thousands of 
years. It is true that in the Bhagavad Gita 
Krishna is called "the holiest of the holy," but 
even in the Gita he is not shown to be a worthy 
god, and in the Bhagavata Purana he is repre- 
sented as stained with crime. The Hindus say 
that the gods are gods and that "to the mighty is 



52 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

no sin," but bad gods cannot make good men. 
"I never learned purity," said Gungram, one of 
the early Christian converts, "from reading about 
Krishna's wicked conduct, as recorded in the 
Shasters. I never learned to hate any sin from 
all my knowledge of the gods of India; but from 
this word, the word of Jesus Christ, the Saviour 
of Sinners, Who died for us, I have learned and 
hope to go on learning, till I shall be taken away 
from sin altogether." 
Contrasts These deficiencies of Hinduism bring out clearly 

Between Hin- enough the contrasts between Hinduism and 
duismand Christianity. These contrasts might be indef- 
amty. } n jf- e jy multiplied. The initial conceptions of 
the two religions as to religion itself are different. 
Christianity is the expression of God's seeking 
love. It is a revelation of God to man. Hin- 
duism has been the embodiment of man's aspira- 
tion after God. Their conceptions of God are 
dissimilar, — as far apart as monotheism and pan- 
theism. Their theories of the universe are 
divergent. To the Christian the world is a 
creation by God of something not identical with 
God. To the Brahman the world is eternal with 
God, and is of God. The two faiths differ as to 
man. In Christianity man is the son of God, 
fallen but under recovery by the redeeming life 
of Christ, and his life is a great reality. The 
Hindu Scriptures represent him as a mere illu- 
sion, the plaything of the absolute One. For 
him to claim real existence is the madness of 



HINDUISM 53 

Avidya, ignorance. Life is Maya, illusion. 
Christianity aims at the banishing of sin from 
life and the formation of true character. Hindu- 
ism evaporates the idea of sin. Indeed, it is an 
impossibility, since all is God. Christianity 
deems the great evil of the world moral. Hindu- 
ism, intellectual. In Christianity God is work- 
ing in men to save them, and God and men 
are free. In Hinduism karma (deeds) deter- 
mines everything. Every man is in the grasp of 
the consequence of the deeds of a former life. 
All is iron necessity, both in God and in man. 
The great notes of Christianity are love, service, 
sacrifice for others. The great notes of Hinduism 
are meditation, self-mortification, asceticism. 
Christianity holds that life is to be filled with 
joy. . Hinduism, that individual existence is 
inseparably bound up with sorrow. Christianity 
teaches the singularity and determinatism of the 
one earthly life. Here we learn to live by faith 
and pass forward to be with God forever. 
Hinduism teaches transmigration and the endless 
working out in life after life of the law of 
karma. Christianity exalts the individual at 
the same time that it teaches the unity of souls in 
the family of God and the body of Christ. 
Hinduism is the foe to individual freedom. It 
allows nothing to the individual except the 
penalty of his deeds. Christianity is the great 
religion of progress. Hinduism deifies the past. 
"The code of Manu, which is the source and 



54 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



Points of 

Contact 

Bet-ween 

Christianity 

and 

Hinduism. 



supreme authority for caste, has done more to 
stereotype and degrade social and religious life 
in India than has any other code in all the history 
of other lands." Christianity is absolute and 
universal. Hinduism is adaptive and ethnic. 
•Christianity sets forth a living and perfect moral 
ideal. Hinduism in its best and loftiest moral 
codes presents a negative and imperfect ideal. 
In Christianity God is all goodness. In 
Hinduism it is not always so. We cannot shut 
our eyes to the terrible indictment of Professor 
Hopkins: "In modern Hinduism to kill, lust, 
steal, drink, so far from offending, may please a 
god that is amorous or bloodthirsty, or like Siva, 
is the lord of thieves. Morality here has God 
against it." (Hopkins, "The Religions of 
India," p. 55.) In one word, Christianity 
teaches what is entirely absent in Hinduism, — 
that God is our Father and that men are brothers, 
that God has suffered for man, and that the end 
of man's life is to love God and his fellow-men 
and to serve them in the power of love. (Jones, 
"Hinduism and Christianity, a Comparison and 
a Contrast," pp. 22-59; Kellogg, "Hinduism, a 
Sermon," pp. 1-22.) 

But there are also points of contact between 
Christianity and Hinduism. If there were not, 
the task of winning India to Christ would be 
hopeless. The great encouragement, apart from 
our own faith in the Gospel and our own experi- 
ence of Christ as the Universal Saviour, is found 



HINDUISM 55 

in the fact that Hinduism witnesses to great needs 
which only the Gospel can meet, to longings 
which only Christ can fulfill. Hinduism and 
Christianity are the only two faiths which hold 
the doctrine of incarnation as of primal impor- 
tance. It grew up in later Hinduism in response 
to deep human necessities. In the earlier 
Hinduism to which the Hindu thought of to-day 
is turning, there was also the idea of sacrificial 
atonement for sin. The unceasing revolt against 
pantheism in the interest of a pure theistic faith 
has kept alive in India for hundreds of years a 
mind for the true God. The idea of bhakti 
or living faith is a Christian principle. Some 
hold that it came into Hinduism as a result of 
Christian influence, but in any case it is there. 
The report of Commission IV at the World 
Missionary Conference in Edinburgh presented 
evidence from many missionaries in India bear- 
ing on these points of contact between Hinduism 
and Christianity. Five of these testimonies will 
suffice. The first finds in Indian theism, the 
second in the Vedanta, the most fruitful points 
of contact and preparation for Christianity ; the 
third takes the view that they are both alike ful- 
filled and superseded by Christianity; the 
fourth finds a preparation in the daily religious 
life of devout Hinduism, and the fifth in the deep 
spiritual longings of the Hindu heart. 

This stream of bhakti, devious as its course has 
so frequently been, forms the main stream of the reli- 



56 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

gion of India and that which has the closest relation to 
Christianity. Its characteristics are belief in a personal 
God, union with Him as the condition of blessedness, 
and faith as the means whereby that union is attained. 
It is also generally associated with a belief in avatars 
or incarnations, as is indicated in a famous passage of 
the Bhagavad-gita (lv. 7), and in the following passage 
from Ramanuja, the philosopher of this school: "As 
He (the supreme Spirit) is a great ocean of boundless 
grace, kindness, love and generosity, He assumed vari- 
ous similar forms without putting away His own essen- 
tial God-like nature, and time after time incarnated 
Himself in the several worlds, granting to His wor- 
shipers rewards according to their desires ; namely, 
religion, riches, earthly love and salvation, and descend- 
ing not only with the purpose of relieving the burden 
of earth, but also to be accessible to men even such as 
we are, so revealing Himself in the world as to be visi- 
ble to the sight of all, and doing such other marvelous 
deeds as to ravish the hearts and eyes of all beings high 
and low." This attitude in India has seldom attained 
to a full and conscious monotheism, though that is 
often implicit in the worshiper's devotional spirit. (M. 
Macnicol.) 

The most important fraeparatio evangelica in 
Hinduism is the Hindu doctrine of Liberation (Mok- 
sha, Mukti). From the time of the Upanishads 
down to the present day, the people of India long for 
and aspire after liberation; i. e., the salvation of their 
souls in union with the Supreme Being. It is, indeed, 
conceived by them as deliverance of the soul from the 
sufferings and pains of transmigration, and in union 
with the pantheistically conceived Godhead, details 
which the Christian missionary cannot help regarding 
as erroneous and quite inadequate to the deeper wants 
of the human soul. But the main idea is most valuable 
as a preparation for the gospel of salvation, as a point 



HINDUISM 57 

of contact between Christianity and Hinduism, and as a 
means of elucidation by contrast. As a matter of fact, 
I know nothing more effective in arousing the interest 
of a Hindu audience than the gospel presented as a 
message of moksha; i. e., of salvation by communion 
with God. (W. Dilger.) 

There is no contradiction between the concept of the 
universal incomprehensible Brahma and the concept of 
the Universal Personality whose will is the order of the 
universe. The positive elements in the concept of 
Brahma are unity, universality, reality, and intelligence; 
if, within that rather sketchy metaphysical outline, there 
now appears the universal person whose will forms the 
moral order of the world, the old idea is in no way dis- 
turbed or weakened, but receives the rich moral content 
necessary for its completion. God is still one, still 
universal, still the mind of the world, while He has 
become much more, for He is now the basis of the 
moral as well as of the intellectual order. Thus the 
early philosophy of India realized a conception of God 
of the highest truth and value, and held to it faithfully 
through all storms and changes. The theistic reformers 
attempted a hundred times to fill this lofty truth with a 
content that would make it the center of all religion, 
but the very fact that each new leader projected a new 
scheme is all the proof that is needed that no scheme 
has proved satisfactory. The true but incomplete 
concept of the Upanishads and the long search of the 
theists both find their completion in the God of Chris- 
tianity. (J. N. Farquhar. ) 

The Hindu trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu and Siva) is 
very different from the Christian conception of the 
Trinity, yet it prepares the way and, to a great extent, 
removes the objections to this doctrine. Better points 
of contact and positive preparation may be found in 
the actual religious life of the present day Hindu. A 
reference to the daily confession of sin in every 



58 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Brahman's ritual is both of historical and practical 
value on a point where it is most difficult to find con- 
nection, because of the defective consciousness of sin 
as a moral reality. But the deepest and most direct 
preparation is to be looked for in the growing bhakti 
movement, with its strong emphasis on the sincerity 
and spiritual character of the individual's devotional 
surrender to God. It expresses itself in many false 
forms, and leads more often to ecstatic trances than to 
a personal relation to the true God. Most of its fol- 
lowers worship that they know not, yet we have here an 
attempt on the part of the individual to break through 
all ceremonialism and intellectualism and to worship 
in truth and in spirit, which cannot but prepare the way 
for the true revelation. (F. W. Steinthal.) 

As to the point of contact between Christianity and 
Hinduism, I should put first and foremost the spiritual 
view of life as opposed to the materialistic conception 
of the West. Though the quality of this spiritual view 
may be very deficient, and though it may contain much 
which is erroneous, yet there can be no question that in 
Hinduism religion is, and has always been, the supreme 
concern of the Hindu mind. The belief that the things 
which are seen are temporal, while the things which 
are not seen are eternal is deeply ingrained in the 
Hindu temperament. Then I should say that the con- 
ception of the oneness of God, though essentially pan- 
theistic and bound up with polytheism, is nevertheless a 
great religious asset, destined to be of immense value 
for the future of Christianity in India. Pantheism in 
India is more theistic than panistic, if the expression 
may be allowed. The conception of the divine, that is, 
is more in evidence than the conception of the All. 
Again, the conception of incarnation, though presenting 
very marked defects and misconceptions, is nevertheless 
not a foreign idea. This conception is also associated 
with the idea of divine action for the good of humanity, 



HINDUISM 59 

and bhakti and the bhaktimarga again have 
marked affinities with the Christian conceptions of 
loving devotion on the part of man, and grace on the 
part of God. Though the idea of salvation (7. <?., 
moksha) is always associated with the conception of 
rebirth, yet there is also connected with it an earnest 
longing and passionate desire for union with God. 
These are a few of the outsanding features, but a sym- 
pathetic mind will find very much in Hindu religious 
ideas which anticipates fuller expression in Christianity. 
(Bernard Lucas.) 

Do we have the sympathetic mind which will 
not only discover the longing for that which is 
available in Christ alone, but will also share this 
treasure with the unsatisfied heart of India? 
(See also Hogg, "Karma and Redemption ;" 
Kellett, "Christ the Fulfillment of Hinduism;" 
and Banerjea, "The Relation Between Chris- 
tianity and Hinduism.") 

Hinduism has not met India's need, and never 
can meet it. It can be met in only one way. 
"What India wants," said Mr. Justice Robertson 
of the Punjab, in London in July, 1910, "is one 
thing only, and that is Christ." 

BIBLE READING 

First Chapter of Romans. 

QUESTIONS 

What are the noble qualities of the Indian people? 
What are the principal sacred books of Hinduism? 
Describe modern philosophic Hinduism. 
What are the characteristics of modern popular 
Hinduism? 



60 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Sketch the progress of reformed Hinduism and name 
the principal reformers. 

What is the difference between the Brahmo and the 
Arya Samaj ? 

How has Christianity affected the thought of 
Hinduism? 

Wherein is Hinduism deficient? 

What is the place of caste in Hinduism? What 
defence can be made of it? What are its evils? 

Describe the place of woman in Hindu society and 
the influence of Hinduism upon ideals of womanhood. 

What are the defects in the Hindu ideas of God? 

Summarize the contrasts between Hinduism and 
Christianity. 

What are the points of contact between Hinduism and 
Christianity? 

SELECTED REFERENCE BOOKS 

Monier Williams, "Hinduism," Gorham, 1894. 

Monier Williams, "Brahmanism and Hinduism," Mac- 
millan, 1891. 

Hopkins, "The Religions of India," Ginn & Co., 1895. 

Mitchell, "The Great Religions of India," Revell, 1905. 

Robson, "Hinduism and Christianity," Oliphant, 
Anderson & Ferrier, 1905. 

Barth, "Religions of India," Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
1882. 

Wilkins, "Modern Hinduism," Scribner, Welford & 
Co., 1887. 

Slater, "The Higher Hinduism in Relation to Chris- 
tianity," Stock, 1902. 

Datta, "The Desire of India," Student Volunteer Mis- 
sionary Union, 1907. 

Bose, "Brahmoism, or History of Reformed Hindu- 
ism," Funk & Wagnalls, 1884. 

Lillingstone, "Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj," Mac- 
millan, 1901. 



CHAPTER II 
BUDDHISM 



CHAPTER II 

BUDDHISM 

Of all the non-Christian religions Buddhism is „ . . 

Resemblance 

usually regarded as most akin to Christianity. to chris- 
The character of its founder more nearly resembles tianity. 
the character of Christ than the character of any 
other great religious teacher, such as Mohammed, 
or ethical teacher, such as Confucius, or Indian 
deity, such as Krishna or Rama. Its moral teach- 
ings in their purity and kindliness seem to breathe 
the spirit of the New Testament ideal of a good 
man. Its sacred books are full of stories wearing 
a racial color very unlike the stories of the Gos- 
pels, but bearing, also, a curious resemblance to 
them. Its priesthood and worship and imagery 
dismayed the Roman Catholic missionaries who 
saw in them a diabolical adaptation of their own. 
So attractive has Buddhism appeared to many 
Western minds that they have felt sure that it was 
one of the great divine lessons, a faith which em- 
bodied the Christian light and an adequate comfort 
to the hearts that rested in it. Seen in Sir Edwin 
Arnold's "Light of Asia," it has seemed to 
them not less beautiful than Christianity and free 
from some of its disadvantages. 

Buddhism has been of special interest to West- Wide 
ern minds, also, because it has had the largest Acceptance of 
number of followers of any religion and, trained Buddhism. 



64 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

to regard pluralities as of great significance, the 
West has looked with awe upon a religion which 
embraces five hundred million souls. " More than 
a third of mankind," said Arnold in the preface to 
his poem, " owe their moral and religious ideals to 
this illustrious prince whose personality, though 
imperfectly revealed in the existing sources of in- 
formation, cannot but appear the highest, gentlest, 
holiest and most beneficent, with one exception, in 
the history of thought. " 

But both these reasons for special interest in 
Buddhism are fallacious. The resemblances to 
Christianity, as we shall see, are underlain by 
deeper differences. Buddha never claimed to be 
more than a man. The salvation which he 
preached was to be worked out by each man for 
himself, without help from any other man or 
from God. The ideas which he taught, while 
expressible to us only in language saturated with 
Christian conceptions, embody principles radically 
at variance with these conceptions. The stories 
of the life of Buddha in the Buddhist Scriptures 
which resemble at all the stories in the Gospels, 
resemble them in the same way in which mediaeval 
legends resemble them, and moreover, they arose 
long after Buddha's death. And the views of life 
set forth in these Scriptures are, as Rhys Davids 
says, "fundamentally opposed to those set forth 
in the New Testament." 

So, also, it is misleading to speak of Buddhism 
as embracing one third of the human race. It is 



BUDDHISM 65 

true that Buddhism has influenced many in India 
who are not Buddhists, but on the other hand, 
millions of those who are called Buddhists are 
animistic spirit-worshipers rather than Buddhists, 
as in Burma and Siam, or moralistic spirit-wor- 
shipers rather than Buddhists, as in China. To 
figure out five hundred million Buddhists in the 
world, it is necessary to include the entire popula- 
tion of China and Japan. But the Chinese are as 
much Confucianists and Taoists as they are Bud- 
dhists. The influential class of the people repudiate 
Buddhism. And in Japan Buddhism, while still 
active and powerful, as we shall see, has really 
ceased to be Buddhism in the sense of its founder, 
and has lost its hold upon the educated section of 
the people. But as a matter of fact the religion 
of Gautama is really no man's religion to-day, so 
great has been the departure of the system from 
the ideas of its founder. " Not one of the five 
hundred millions who offer flowers now and then 
on Buddhist shrines, who are more or less moulded 
by Buddhist teaching, is only or altogether a Bud- 
dhist." (Rhys Davids, "Buddhism," p. 7.) The 
population of the world which even measurably 
follows the tradition of the first two centuries of 
Buddhism is less than the communicant Protestant 
church membership of the United States. 

We speak of Buddhism as a religion, and in the Is Buddhism 
forms with which we ( have to deal with it in the a Religion? 
missionary enterprise a religion it certainly is, 
even in those countries where it is truest to its 



66 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

original character. But in a strict sense, pure 
Buddhism is not a religion. " The Buddhist," a 
monthly magazine published by the Young Men's 
Buddhist Association of Ceylon, frankly avows 
this: " It is an etymological injustice to refer to 
Buddhism as a religion, " it says. " In Buddhism 
thought is free, and authority has no position. To 
be a Buddhist is to be h'religatus, to be unbound, 
to be freed from all dogmatic authority. To call 
Buddhism a religion is a contradiction in terms. 
Buddhism not only does not admit the existence of 
a God, it also denies the existence of a soul, a 
permanent, unchanging entity. In Mahanidana 
Sutta and elsewhere the Lord has positively stated 
that man has no soul. This denial of soul makes 
it still more inappropriate to call Buddhism a re- 
ligion." ("The Buddhist," July, 1907, p. 219.) 
And editorially u The Buddhist " adds, — 

If we adopt the broader definition of the term, as enun- 
ciated by the cultured few, who, excluding the mysterious 
and the unknowable from the sphere of religion, include 
it within the field of human knowledge, and make it co- 
extensive with human conduct, then indeed can Buddhism 
be rightly called a religion. What Buddhism is has been 
well defined by the Master himself in the following 
verse : — 

To shun all that is evil, 

To practice all that is good, 

To purify one's own heart, 

This is the teaching of the Buddhas. 
That expresses the whole content of Buddhism. It 
demands no belief in a god, involves no dogma, and en- 
joins no ritual. It is self-culture based on self-knowl- 



BUDDHISM 67 

edge. In other words, it is the rational regulation of 
one's own conduct. Buddhism is that, and nothing 
more, nothing less. Whether or not that will fulfill the 
conditions of a religion depends, as has been already in- 
dicated, on the meaning attached to that term. One 
thing, however, is certain — it satisfies the needs and aspi- 
rations of men from whose eyes the scales of superstition 
have fallen, and who need no supernatural help to under- 
stand and appreciate what is good and true. 

This is only one view of Buddhism, however, 
and a view from which the great majority of those 
who are called Buddhists have broken far away. 
Their view is as great a breach from original Bud- 
dhism as that was from the Hinduism from which 
it sprang. 

For Buddhism arose in the midst of Hinduism Origin of 
or Brahmanism as a revolt in the interest of morals Buddkism. 
against a sacerdotalism which divorced religion and 
conduct, and not only in the interest of morals, but 
also in the interest of spiritual reality. The founder 
of the new way found no solution of life's problem 
and no rest from its distress in the old views. 
What could sacrifices avail when there was no 
God, as he became convinced, to be moved by 
them, and when the nature of man makes it im- 
possible that a God could do anything whatever 
for him ? And were not all men under the same 
burden of life and equal in their impotence to 
lighten that burden, which Buddha believed could 
be lifted only with the extinction of life ? Bud- 
dhism became, accordingly, a protest against 



68 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Brahmanism or sacerdotal Hinduism and against 
caste. Its founder was a Hindu who lived and 
died within Hinduism. " He would have claimed 
that he was a correct exponent of the spirit of the 
ancient Vedic faith. His disciples simply claimed 
that he was the greatest, wisest and best of the 
Hindus. As there were ' reformers before the 
Reformation' in Europe, so in India there were 
sages before Gautama who were dissatisfied with 
the Brahmanical system ; but he was the Hindu 
Luther, in whose voice all previous voices blended, 
and whose personality fused into living unity forces 
that had been long gathering, and originated a 
movement that swept over India and all but sub- 
merged for a time the monuments, institutions and 
ordinances of the ancient religion." (Grant, 
" The Religions of the World," p. 108.) Brah- 
manic Hinduism, however, was too strong and 
adaptive. It took Buddhism by the hand and 
boldly drew it back again into the ancient system. 
It adopted Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu. 
It took from Buddhism " the abolition of sacri- 
fices, great tenderness toward animal life, great 
intensity of belief in the doctrine of transmigration 
and in the efficacy of self -mortification as a source of 
power in accelerating progress towards final emanci- 
pation." (Williams, "Hinduism," p. 80.) On the 
other hand, Buddhism degenerated. It became 
more idolatrous than Hinduism. Also it dropped 
its ultra-pessimism and atheism. It lost its indi- 



BUDDHISM 69 

viduality, and as a distinct system faded out of 
India. " The old faith took it into its arms and 
sucked out its life blood." That is what Hinduism 
would fain do with Christianity to-day. 

While Buddhism has subsided into Hinduism in J a fnigm. 
India, there remains in Jainism a religion akin to 
Buddhism, maintaining a distinct existence. It is 
a cult for the worship of the seventy-two Victori- 
ous Ones, men who by self-discipline have tri- 
umphed over their passions and have . attained 
perfection. According to the census there are 
half a million Jains. The Jains believe in sepa- 
rate individual souls, as the Buddhists do not. 
Their "three jewels" are Right-belief, Right- 
knowledge and Right-conduct, instead of the Bud- 
dhist Triad — the Buddha, the Law and the Order. 
They are great shrine builders, and while the sys- 
tem is cold and fruitless, it is even more punctilious 
than Buddhism in refraining from taking life. 
They strain water before drinking it, sweep the 
ground before sitting down, and even wear gauze 
over their mouths to avoid destroying insect life. 
It is an interesting illustration of the soul's need 
of a religion, and of the strange forms which the 
religious instinct will create. 

Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, was born Life of the 
in the sixth century B. C, at a place called Kapila- Founder of 
vastu, on the border of the river Rohini in Kasala, Buddhism, 
the modern district of Oudh, about one hundred 
miles northeast of the city of Benares. The date 
of his birth is uncertain. The traditions fix it 



70 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

about 543 B. C, but modern European scholars 
are disposed to place it about 500 B. C. Almost 
all that we know of his life is legendary. His 
father, named Suddhodana, was chief of the tribe 
of Sakyas of the Kshatriya caste. His mother, 
Maya, who had been childless until his birth in 
her forty-fifth year, died shortly afterwards, and he 
was brought up by his mother's sister, who was 
also a wife of Suddhodana. Gautama was the 
boy's only name. Later, when he had attained, 
as he believed, perfect wisdom, he took the title 
of Buddha, " the enlightened one." Many other 
titles and names were then and later given to him, 
such as Sakya-muni, or the sage of the Sakyas, 
Siddartha, or "one who has fulfilled the purpose 
of his coming," Tathagata, or he "who comes 
and goes as his predecessors." Faithful Buddhists 
call him "Lord of the World," "the Lord," 
" King of the Law," etc. 
Renunciation. He was married early to his cousin, Yasodhara, 
and his life was surrounded by all that could make 
a man happy. But Gautama was not happy. 
The burden of human suffering, of the transitori- 
ness of all pleasure, of the sheer weight of exist- 
ence rested on his mind unceasingly, and the 
luxury of his home did not hide the weariness and 
woe of life from him. In his twenty-ninth year, 
accordingly, he abandoned his home, his wife and 
his new-born son, who he feared would only tie 
him faster to his old life, and withdrew into seclu- 
sion to study religion and philosophy and to seek 



BUDDHISM 71 

for the secret of peace, the way of escape from 
life's intolerable load. All the traditions agree in 
their general account of the reason for Gautama's 
resolution to forsake the world. The version put 
forth by the Buddhists of Ceylon gives the story : — 
The books tell us that when Prince Siddartha was 
driving in the park one day he suddenly perceived an 
infirm old man, with back bent by the weight of years, 
who was creeping painfully along, leaning upon a staff. 
Siddartha, in astonishment, asked his charioteer, Channa, 
what that strange being might be, and Channa answered 
that it was an old man. "Was he born in this state?" 
further inquired the prince. " No, master, he once was 
young and blooming as thou." "Are there more such 
old men?" asked the prince, with growing astonishment. 
"Very man}', master." " And how did he arrive at this 
deplorable condition? " "It is the course of nature that 
all men must grow old and feeble, if they do not die 
young." "I, also, Channa?" "Thou also, master." 
This incident made the prince so pensive that he gave 
orders to be driven home, having lost all pleasure in the 
beautiful surroundings. Some time after this, while out 
driving again, he saw a leper, and when in answer to his 
questions Channa also explained this apparition to him, 
he was so deeply affected that thereafter he avoided all 
amusements, and began to ponder over human misery. 
In the course of time the third apparition was perceived 
by him ; he saw by the wayside a corpse in a state of de- 
composition. Violently agitated, he returned home im- 
mediately, exclaiming: " Woe unto me, what is the use 
of kingly splendor, all pomp and all enjoyment, if they 
cannot guard me from old age, sickness and death ! How 
unhappy is mankind ! Is there then no way of forever 
ending suffering and death, which are renewed with every 
birth?" This question occupied him henceforth uninter- 
ruptedly. The answer thereto came to him at a subse- 



72 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



Enlighten- 
ment. 



Evangeliza- 
tion. 



quent drive. There appeared to him an ascetic in yellow 
garb, as worn by the Buddhist brethren, whose venerable 
features clearly reflected his deep inner peace. This ap- 
parition showed to the prince, troubled with the enigma 
of existence, the way on which he had to seek its solution. 
Henceforth the resolution matured within him to leave 
the world and to step on the path which everyone must 
travel who strives for perfection. 

Battling with Mara, the Spirit of Evil, and 
studying the solutions of life's problems offered by 
other teachers, Gautama withdrew into the jungles 
with five disciples, and there for six years gave 
himself up to penance. But philosophy and pen- 
ance alike were vain to lift the dire burden of 
existence, and his disciples also left him and went 
away. Then alone brooding deep he came to the 
haven of peace, pierced through to the truth of 
life's unreality, dispensed with God, and found in 
the heart's own power of inward culture and love 
the adequate deliverance from the curse of the 
lusts of the soul and the will to live. He had 
renounced the world, and now had entered into 
the great enlightenment. He hesitated at first to 
proclaim his discovery, but his hesitation was not 
long, and at the age of thirty-five he started to 
Benares to teach his doctrine of the Middle Path, 
"the Noble Eightfold Path," and "the Four 
Noble Truths." 

On the way to Benares he met Upaka, an as- 
cetic, who wondered at his beaming face, and 
asked him what truth he had discovered that made 
his face shine. Gautama answered : "I follow 



BUDDHISM 73 

no Teacher ; I have overcome all foes ana all 
stains ; I am superior to all men and all gods ; I 
am the absolute Buddha ; I am going now to 
Benares to set in motion the Wheel of the Law as 
a king the triumphant wheel of his kingdom. I 
am the Conqueror." ("Religions of Mission 
Fields," p. 91.) At Benares he found the five 
disciples who had forsaken him and won them 
back, forming them with himself into the first 
Sangha or Order of Monks. For forty-five years 
he carried on his mission, itinerating through the 
country for eight months of the year and spending 
the rest in meditation and the instruction of his 
fast increasing disciples. At last the end came, 
bright with the hope of utter hopelessness. " Be- 
hold now, Monks," he said to a great assembly as 
the end drew near, " I impress it upon you : all 
things are subject to the law of dissolution ; press 
on earnestly to perfection ; soon the Tathagata's 
final extinction will take place. At the end of 
three months the Tathagata will enter on extinc- 
tion." At Kusinagara the old man passed away, 
saying with his last breath to his followers, " Be- 
hold now, Mendicants, I say to you everything 
that exists must pass away. Work out your own 
perfection with diligence." 

After Gautama's death his teaching was spread Spread of 
far and wide over India. At first the new religion Buddhism, 
worked inside the forms of Hinduism in spite of 
its repudiation of caste. But soon the conflict 
arose which ended in the re-absorption of Bud- 



74 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

dhism into the old system. This opposition and 
the first success of the new religion forced it to a 
development both of its ideas and of its organiza- 
tion. These developments in their extreme form, 
however, came later and in other lands. In India 
for two centuries the religion retained its general 
character, and spread from Benares through the 
Ganges Valley. At the end of this time, Alex- 
ander's campaign threw the country into an anarchy 
out of which arose a dominant kingdom whose 
king, an adventurer of low birth, was despised by 
the Brahmans and in return patronized the Bud- 
dhist Church. His grandson, Asoka, who united 
nearly the whole of India under his sceptre, became 
the Constantine of Indian Buddhism. 

Asoka formally acknowledged to hold his power and 
possessions only as a fief from the church, he convoked 
an ecumenic council for the establishing of orthodox 
teaching, tightened the reins of church discipline by 
the introduction of quinquennial assemblies to be held in 
each diocese, erected pagodas and endowed monasteries 
with great profusion in all parts of India. 

But the greatest work Asoka did was the establishing 
of a board for foreign missions (Dharma-Mahamatra) , 
which sent forth to all surrounding countries enthusiastic 
preachers, who went out in self-chosen poverty, clad in 
rags, with the alms-bowl in their hands, but supported by 
the whole weight of Asoka's political and diplomatic in- 
fluence. His own son, Mehendra, went out as a mission- 
ary to Ceylon, and the whole island forthwith embraced 
the faith of Buddha. 

At the same time Cabulistan, Gandhara, Cashmere and 
Nepaul were brought under the influence of Buddhism, 
and thenceforth every caravan of traders that left India 



BUDDHISM 75 

for Central Asia was accompanied by Buddhist mis- 
sionaries. 

In this way it happened that as early as 250 B. C. a 
number of eighteen Buddhist emissaries reached China, 
where they are held in remembrance to the present day, 
their images occupying a conspicuous place in every large 
temple. 

So then we observe with regard to these earliest Bud- 
dhist missionaries three things which form a remarkable 
parallel to the line of movement followed by modern 
Christian missions in Eastern Asia. It is evident that 
these Buddhist missionaries went out, in the first in- 
stance, with even greater self-abnegation than Roman 
Catholic priests — as mendicant monks; secondly, they 
followed in the wake of trade; and thirdly, they were 
backed by imperial influence and diplomacy. (Eitel, 
"Three Lectures on Buddhism," pp. 20-22.) 

The sacred books of Buddhism embrace ( i ) the Sacred Books. 
Tripitaka, which is the canon of the Southern 
Buddhists, and which comprises the Vinaya 
Pitaka, a collection of discourses addressed to the 
Order of Monks, the Dutta Pitaka, discourses 
intended specially for the laity, and the Abhid- 
hamma, which develops the metaphysics of Bud- 
dhism ; (2) the commentaries on the Tripitaka, 
called Arthakatha, and (3) the canon of the 
Northern Buddhists, accepted in Tibet and China. 

None of the books of the Buddhist Scriptures 
can at present be satisfactorily traced back of the 
Council of Asoka, held at Patna about 250 B. C. 
For three centuries after Gautama's death we have 
no proof of the existence of a written canon. The 
earliest completion of the modern Buddhist canon 



76 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

was in Ceylon. There the whole canon was first 
compiled and fixed in writing between the years 
412 and 432 of the Christian era. The canon of 
Chinese Buddhism, Eitel holds, was begun about 
860 and completed in 1410 A. D. The modern 
edition of it, known as the Northern Collection, 
is of still later date, having been completed dur- 
ing the years 1573-1619 A. D. Recent scholars 
fix earlier dates for the canon. 

There are two great differences between the 
Buddhist Scriptures and the Christian Bible. In 
the first place, no inspiration whatever is claimed 
for the sacred books of Buddhism. As Sir Monier 
Williams says: "The characteristic of the Chris- 
tian's Bible is that it claims to be a supernatural 
revelation, yet it attaches no mystical talismanic 
virtue to the mere sound of its words. On the 
other hand, the characteristic of the Buddhist Bible 
is that it utterly repudiates all claim to be a super- 
natural revelation, yet the very sound of its words 
is believed to possess a meritorious efficacy capable 
of elevating anyone who hears it to heavenly abodes 
in future existences. In illustration I may advert 
to a legend current in Ceylon that once on a time 
five hundred bats lived in a cave where two monks 
daily recited the Buddha's Law. These bats gained 
such merit by hearing the sound of the words that, 
when they died, they were all reborn as men and 
ultimately as gods." (Williams, "Buddhism," 
p. 557.) In the second place, the Buddhist Scrip- 
tures, and especially any extant manuscripts, came 



BUDDHISM 77 

long after the life of Buddha and the origin of the 
religion. There is a gap of nearly a thousand 
years, as one writer puts it, in which the record is 
too imperfect for us to be positive that the Pitakas, 
as we now have them, are the Scriptures of Primi- 
tive Buddhism. (Bishop, "Gautama or Jesus?" 
p. 28.) Our oldest existing manuscripts of the 
New Testament were written one hundred years 
before the first edition of the Buddhist Scriptures 
was undertaken. " Of the latter, not a single 
ancient manuscript has withstood the ravages of 
time, nor has any copy of an ancient Buddhist 
text ever been examined critically by either friend 
or foe in the searching manner in which all 
the codices of the New Testament have been 
tested." (Eitel, "Three Lectures on Buddhism," 
p. 27.) 

And what was the doctrine which Buddha Buddha's 
discovered, which the missionaries went out to Doctrine, 
teach, and which the sacred books enshrined? 
It rested on the Four Noble Truths: 1. Suffering 
or sorrow. Birth, growth, decay, death all cause 
sorrow. All states of mind which co-exist with 
the consciousness of individuality are states of 
suffering. 2. The cause of suffering. The 
action of the outer world upon us excites delight 
or desire, and these alike are the cause of sorrow. 
3. The cessation of sorrow. The annihilation of 
all thirst and lust of life is the deliverance from 
sorrow. 4. The way to deliverance is the Noble 
Eightfold Path of 



78 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

1. Right belief. 5. Right means of livelihood. 

2. Right feelings. 6. Right endeavor. 

3. Right speech. 7. Right memory. 

4. Right actions. 8. Right meditation. 

Arnold's "Light of Asia" sets forth these 
noble Truths in flowing verse: — 

The First Truth is of Sorrow. Be not mocked! 

Life which je prize is long-drawn agony : 
Only its pains abide ; its pleasures are 

As birds which light and fly. 
The Second Truth is Sorrow's Cause. What grief 

Springs of itself and springs not of Desire? 
Senses and things perceived mingle and light 

Passion's quick spark of fire. 
The third is Sorrow's Ceasing. This is peace 

To conquer love of self and lust of life, 
To tear deep-rooted passion from the breast, 

To still the inward strife. 
Then Sorrow ends, for Life and Death have ceased ; 

How should lamps flicker when their oil is spent? 
The old sad count is clear, the new is clean ; 

Thus hath a man content. 

The Fourth Truth is The Way. It openeth wide, 
Plain for all feet to tread, easy and near, 

The Noble Eightfold Path ; it goeth straight 
To peace and refuge. Hear! 

On The Way to the extinction of desire there 
are four stages. 1. Conversion following upon 
(a) companionship with the good; (b) hearing 
of the law; (c) enlightened reflection; or (d) the 
practice of virtue. Those in the first stage are 
free successively from the first three of the Ten 
Fetters: (1) from the delusion of self; (2) from 



BUDDHISM 79 

doubt as to the Buddha and his doctrines, and (3) 
from the belief in the efficacy of rites and cere- 
monies. 2. The stage of those who will return 
only once to this world. 3. The stage of those 
who will never return, from whom two more 
Fetters have fallen: (4) sensuality, and (5) malev- 
olence. 4. The Stage of the Holy Ones or 
Arahats, in which men become free from the 
remaining Fetters: (6) love of life on earth, (7) 
desire for life in heaven, (8) pride, (9) self- 
righteousness, and (10) ignorance. When these 
last five are broken and the Fourth Stage is 
passed, the Buddhist believer becomes Asekha 
and passes beyond all delusion and sorrow into 
the perfect peace of Nirvana. And these stages 
are not all crowded into one life time. Life 
after life must be lived through before, treading 
the Path, the believer can attain the goal. All 
evil and good alike must be lived down in the 
wheel of Transmigration before the will to live is 
extinct and the calm of Nirvana won. 

This is the core of Buddhism. It knows no No God in 
God. It unequivocally denies the existence of Buddhism, 
any divine Creator or Ruler of the Universe. 
The ideal of God as a personal Father is entirely 
alien and impossible to it. (Gogerly, "The 
Kristiyani Prajnopati," Parti, pp. 74-105.) The 
Buddhist Catechism of Subhadra Bhikshu, pub- 
lished by the Maha Bodhi Society of Ceylon and 
officially- approved, in answer to the question, 
"Did a god-creator call the world into existence 



80 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

by his will?" replies, "There is no god-creator 
upon whose grace or will the existence of the 
world depends. Everything originates and 
develops by and out of itself, by virtue of its own 
will and according to its inner nature and condi- 
tion (its karma). Only the ignorance of man has 
invented a personal god-creator. The Buddhists, 
however, absolutely reject the belief in a personal 
god, and consider the doctrine of a creation out 
of nothing a delusion." The Buddhism of 
Gautama and of all who hold his doctrine 
unchanged is pure atheism. 
And No Soul And not only did Gautama deny the existence 
n Man. f Q oc j # He denied, also, the existence of the 

soul. The first of the Ten Fetters is the heresy 
of individuality, which must be abandoned on the 
threshold of the Path to holiness. The very doc- 
trine of the soul or personal self is declared to be 
a fountain of evil. It is held to constitute with 
sensuality, heresy and ritualism the cause of 
sorrow and suffering and despair. It was impos- 
sible, of course, for Gautama to deny the reality 
of sentient existence. His very purpose was to 
escape from it. His teaching was that it had five 
elements or Skandhas: 1, The organized body; 
2, sensation; 3, perception; 4, discrimination, 
and 5, consciousness; and Buddhism sees these to 
be five steps in an endless chain of cause and 
effect. Existence, it is said, is caused by (1) 
ignorance or delusion; ignorance produced (2) 
action; from action arises (3) consciousness, 



BUDDHISM 81 

thence (4) substantiality, thence (5) the six organs 
of perception (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and 
mind) ; from the action of these organs arises (6) 
sensation, thence comes (7) perception ; thence 
(8) desire or lust; from this desire springs (9) the 
cleaving to existence, which produces (10) indi- 
vidual existence ; the latter finds its expression in 
(11) birth, but birth invariably produces (12) de- 
crepitude and death; and death, though it breaks 
up the above-mentioned five constituents (Skand- 
has) of individual life, leaves behind the repro- 
ductive power, a germ as it were, which has to 
run the same round again through ignorance, 
action, consciousness and so forth. (Eitel, 
"Three Lectures on Buddhism," p, 86.) In all 
this, or back of this, there was no personal soul 
or individuality whose immortality could frustrate 
the effort to escape from the unrest of existence 
into Nirvana and its calm. (Hardy, "Manual of 
Buddhism, ' ' Ch. IX. ) The Buddhist Catechism, 
in a note on the soul, is explicit in its statement: — 

The widespread belief in an immortal soul within 
us — that is, an individual entity, endowed with knowl- 
edge, differing from others, created or come into exist- 
ence, and nevertheless eternal — arises principally from 
the egotistical desire for eternal, personal continued 
existence. Hence this superstition is a consequence of 
the deluded will-to-live, and belongs to the "ten fetters" 
which chain man to existence and prevent his salvation. 
To understand that after all it is the individuality, with 
its wants and desires opposed to those of other individ- 
ualities, which causes all suffering in the world, that 



82 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

therefore the striving for individual happiness is accord- 
ing to its very nature wrong, and that it is best to 
relinquish it voluntarily — that is to take a great step, 
yea the greatest, on the road to true knowledge. But 
man wants to preserve his individuality at any price; 
hence the popularity of those religions which promise 
eternal continued existence of the individuality ; hence 
the never-ending struggle for existence ; hence all suffer- 
ing, all sorrow, of which life is full ; hence the difficulty 
of emancipation. "Individuality is a burning fire, O 
disciples. And by what is it kindled? By lust, ill-will 
and delusion." 

This was Buddha's doctrine. ' 'Mendicants, " 
said he in concluding a sermon to his monks, 
speaking of death, "that which binds the Teacher 
to existence (viz., tanha, thirst) is cut off; but 
his body still remains. While his body shall 
remain he will be seen by gods and men, but 
after the termination of life, upon the dissolution 
of the body, neither gods nor men will see him." 
(Rhys Davids, "Buddhism," p. 99.) 

But if there is no soul, what is there to pass 
into Nirvana? What meaning is there in 
Buddha's doctrine of transmigration? What is it 
that is reborn in the long pursuit of Nirvana 
through unnumbered successive lives? What 
moves through the stages of the Noble Path? 
What is salvation, or deliverance? What is there 
to be saved or delivered? The Buddhist Cate- 
chism answers: — 

What then is it in us that is reborn? 

Our will-to-live and our moral character. These 



BUDDHISM 83 

form the core of our being, and create for themselves 
after the disintegration of our present body a new one, 
corresponding exactly to their nature. 

Is not the individual will-to-live or individuality 
the same as what is called "soul?" 

No, it is not the same. The belief in an "immortal 
soul" — that is, an indivisible, eternal and indestructible 
entity, which has only taken up its temporary abode in 
the body — Buddhism considers an error, based on igno- 
rance of the true nature of being and of living beings. 
Buddhism teaches no "transmigration of souls" (metemp- 
sychosis) but the new formation of the individual in 
the material world of phenomena in virtue of its will to 
live (Tanha) and its moral character (Karma). 

Then the being which is reborn is not the same 
which died? 

It is not the same and not another. It may seem to 
be another to a man still in the state of ignorance, who 
wrongly identifies the personal ego-consciousness with 
his true being. He who has attained wisdom knows 
that his real being is his tanha and his karma ; but that 
the recurring ego-consciousness is only a transient 
phenomenon, to be compared to the torch lit by a 
wanderer at night to find his way. When he does not 
need it any more, he extinguishes it, to light a new 
torch for a later wandering. Thus, though the ego- 
consciousness may change, it is in a sense by the tie of 
Karma always the same individuality which in one birth 
does the good or bad deed and in the next reaps the 
fruits of these deeds, though in the absence of any sub- 
stance passing from one life to the next it is not abso- 
lutely the same. 

This may seem elusive, but to the Buddhist Karma. 
Karma is the most real of realities. (Rhys 
Davids, "Hibbert Lectures," 1881, Lecture III.) 
Men have a lust to live. It is this that sends 



84 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

them back into the world again. The Buddhist 
Catechism sets forth the pure Buddhist doctrine : — 

Can everybody attain Nirvana already in the present 
birth? 

Only very few can. Most men have so defective a 
mental and moral nature, as the result of their deeds in 
former births, that they require many rebirths before 
they have perfected themselves sufficiently to gain 
release. But every one who earnestly strives can gain a 
rebirth under favorable conditions. 

Does our rebirth depend solely upon ourselves? 

Entirely upon our inner nature, our will. This 
craving desire (tanha), based on ignorance (avijja) 
which pervades us all and forms the essence of our 
being, is the real creative power; it is what other reli- 
gions personify as god ; it is the cause of our existence 
and our rebirth, and in truth the creator, preserver and 
destroyer of all things — the real trinity. 

Are the nature and quality of our rebirth also depend- 
ent upon ourselves? 

Yes. The nature and quality of our rebirth are 
dependent upon our Karma. 

What is Karma? 

Karma is our action ; our merit and our guilt in a 
moral sense. If our merit preponderates, we are reborn 
in a higher scale of beings, or as man in favorable cir- 
cumstances ; but if we are heavily laden with guilt, the 
necessary consequence is a rebirth in a lower form and 
full of suffering. 

Are not our actions the natural result of our inborn 
individual character? 

Certainly. But this inborn character is nothing else 
than the product of our Karma ; i. e., of all our thoughts, 
words and deeds in former lives. We are in every 
moment of our existence exactly what we have made 
ourselves to be, and we enjoy and suffer only what we 
deserve. 



BUDDHISM 85 

It is out of this will to live and this grip of Nirvana. 
Karma that the Buddhist hopes to escape at last 
into Nirvana. And what is Nirvana? It is the 
extinction of the will to live, either here or else- 
where. In it Karma is clean spent. Nothing is 
left that could be reborn. Nirvana literally 
means "to be extinguished, to be blown out like 
a flame blown out by the wind or extinguished 
for want of fuel." (Buddhist Catechism, p. 61.) 
It is, as the Buddhists say, "a state of mind and 
heart in which all desire for life or annihilation, 
all egotistic craving has become extinct, and with 
it every passion, every grasping desire, every 
fear, all ill-will, and every sorrow. It is a state 
of perfect inward peace, accompanied by the 
imperturbable certainty of having attained deliv- 
erance. — a state words cannot describe, and 
which the imagination of the worldling tries in 
vain to picture to himself. Only one who has 
himself experienced it knows what Nirvana is." 
(Buddhist Catechism, p. 22.) In a note the 
Catechism admits that Parinirvana, the ulterior 
Nirvana, "in the sense of other religions and of 
scientific materialism, is indeed total annihilation, 
complete dissolution of the individuality, for noth- 
ing remains in Parinirvana which in any way 
corresponds to the human conception of exist- 
ence." (p. 61.) And this is what it must seem 
to us unless we breathe into Buddhism's theory 
of man the life of a soul. What it meant to 
Buddha we cannot be sure. "He may have 



86 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

looked upon Nirvana as a state of personal 
immortality, in which the spirit, exempt from the 
eddies of transmigration, revels in the enjoyment 
of unlimited happiness arising from the annihila- 
tion of all desire. On the other hand, he may 
have viewed Nirvana as a state of absolute anni- 
hilation of personality and individual existence. 
It is impossible to decide w T hich of the two views 
Buddha actually held. But I am inclined to 
think he most probably left the question undecided 
in his own mind/' (Eitel, "Three Lectures on 
Buddhism," p. 88 f.) 
The Ethics of With no God to help him, man's struggle for 
Buddhism. Nirvana becomes in Buddhism a discipline of 
self-culture, as "The Buddhist" proudly declared 
in the editorial which has been quoted. Its 
philosophy defines its ends, but its ethics pre- 
scribes its means. It calls for self-conquest and 
a life of virtue and benevolence, not active and 
disturbing, but passive and calm, abstaining from 
all evil act or evil thought, and seeking that sub- 
jugation of all desire and all will, even the desire 
to see good and the will to live to do it, which 
will issue at last in "lifeless, timeless bliss." 
Of self-conquest the Dhammapada says, "If one 
man conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand 
men, and if another conquer himself, he is the 
greatest of conquerors." * But "to attain the 
Buddhist ideal, self-conquest must be carried so 
far as to eliminate all personal affection for 
friends or relations. Thus in the Vessantara, the 



BUDDHISM 87 

last of the Jataka stories of the rebirths of 
Buddha, we are told that the final act of self- 
conquest by which Buddha qualified himself to be 
born as Buddha, was the giving up to a Brahman 
who wanted them as his slaves, first his two chil- 
dren and then his wife. When asked to surrender 
his wife, he did not reply, "Yesterday I gave my 
children to the Brahman ; how can I give Maddi 
to you to be left alone in the forest?" No! he 
was as though receiving a purse of gold, of a 
thousand pieces of gold; indifferent, unattached, 
with no clinging of mind he gave her up. 
(Robinson, "The Interpretation of the Character 
of Christ to Non-Christian Races," p. 68.) 
And so also the Buddhist ideal of benevolence 
aims at the utter extinction of active love as well 
as of hate. The distinctive ideal of Christian 
love as the will to serve and to live in order to 
serve, Buddhism repudiates. In the Dhamma- 
pada we read, "Let no man love anything; loss 
of the beloved is evil. Those who love nothing 
and hate nothing have no fetters." ("Dhamma- 
pada, " p. 211.) "From love comes grief, from 
love comes fear; he who is free from love knows 
neither grief nor fear. " (P. 215.) Gautama is 
represented as saying, "Those who cause me pain 
and those who cause me joy, to all I am alike; 
affection and hatred I know not." (Robinson, 
"Interpretation of the Character of Christ to 
Non-Christian Races," p. 70.) 

Nevertheless, it was the ethics of Buddhism Caste. 



88 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

that constituted the really noble teaching of 
Gautama. It renounced caste, although in Cey- 
lon where Buddhism is at its purest, and where 
it has prevailed for over two thousand years, caste 
exercises a strong influence. "All castes, how- 
ever low, were supposed to be eligible to 
Buddha's priesthood, but in Ceylon ordination 
gradually became the privilege of the Vellala 
caste alone, until a Sinhalese of a lower caste 
went to Burma and got ordained, the second 
priestly order being open to three castes outside 
the Vellalas, but refusing any of the other castes 
— so making two castes of priests in the island." 
(Ferguson, "Ceylon in 1903," p. 137.) Still, 
in its general influence, Buddhism ministered to 
human brotherhood. 

Ten Com- Buddhism had its ten commandments or vows. 

mandments. The first five of these are binding on all Bud- 
dhists: — 

1. Not to kill or injure any living being. 

2. Not to take anything which does not belong to me 
or has not been given to me voluntarily. 

3. To abstain from all sexual excess and incontinence. 

4. Not to lie, deceive, or slander. 

5. To abstain from all intoxicants and excitants. 

The next three are not obligatory upon common 
believers, but are recommended to all pious lay- 
men: — 

6. Not to eat at improper times; i. e., not to take 
solid food after midday. 

7. To abstain from dancing, the singing of worldly 
songs, from attending plays or musical performances ; 



BUDDHISM 89 

in short, to abstain from all worldly and distracting 
amusements. 

8. To avoid the use of ornaments of every kind, of 
perfumes, fragrant oils or ointments; in short, anything 
that tends to vanity. 

These eight and two more are obligatory upon 
all priests, the additional two being, — 

9. To abandon the use of luxurious beds, to sleep on 
a hard, low couch, and to avoid all and every worldli- 
ness. 

10. To live always in voluntary poverty. 

There are also ten sins: three of the body, Sins and 
murder, theft and adultery; four of the speech, Duties. 
lying, slander, abuse and unprofitable conversa- 
tion; and three of the mind, covetousness, malice 
and skepticism. There are six relationships with 
mutual obligations: parent and child, teacher and 
scholar, priest and householder, husband and 
wife, master and servant, friend and friend. The 
ethical teaching of Buddhism was not without its 
limitations. In the matter of lying, for example, 
four things were necessary to constitute a lie: "1. 
There must be the utterance of the thing that is 
not. 2. There must be the knowledge that it is 
not. 3. There must be some endeavor to prevent 
the person addressed from learning the truth. 4. 
There must be the discovery by the person de- 
ceived that what has been told him is not true." 
(Hardy, "A Manual of Buddhism," p. 486.) 
But there have been Christian teachers like 
Jeremy Taylor who taught that it was right to 



90 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

lie to children and to insane people. Gautama's 
personal doctrine was nobler than that. 
The Sangha But it may be asked, how could society exist 

Priesthood. anc i ethical relationships, calling for positive 
feelings and action, be maintained under the 
Buddhist philosophy that all desire and all life 
were evil? The new religion, like Christianity 
in the Middle Ages, was tempered to human 
weakness, and different orders of disciples were 
established. The Sangha, or order of the priest- 
hood, alone renounced life with its action and 
relationship, and the great body of laymen were 
appointed a less exacting path. Christians who 
have found a way to live on a different plane 
from the Sermon on the Mount or the spiritual 
experience of St. Paul, and still regard them- 
selves as followers of Christ, must not be over 
severe on the working adaptation of Buddhism. 
The Buddhist Catechism defines the two orders 
of Buddhists as follows: "The Upasakos, or lay 
followers of the doctrine, take only the five gen- 
eral vows, and try to the best of their power to 
live up to the precepts of virtuous conduct and 
benevolence contained in the Sigalovada-Suttam, 
but remain in the world and faithfully perform 
their duties as members of a family and citizens. 
The Bhikkhus, however, the true disciples of the 
Buddha, renounce the world completely, join the 
Brotherhood of the Elect, take the ten vows, and 
regulate their life entirely according to the rules 
contained in the Vinayo." 



BUDDHISM 91 

The priesthood from the outset was required to 
renounce all worldly activity, to go forth from 
home into homelessness, to live in monasteries or 
as hermits, to give themselves wholly to self- 
inspection and meditation and moral self-culture, 
and to seek only the goal of Nirvana. Through 
the priesthood is the only path to salvation. "In 
the worldly life," says the Catechism, "the 
thorough fulfillment of the Ten Vows, the throw- 
ing off of the Ten Fetters — in short, the total 
annihilation of desire, hatred, and delusion — are 
almost impossible. All worldly activity rests in 
the main on selfishness and ignorance." It is not 
surprising that it was charged, "as the earliest 
teachings of the Buddhist authorities distinctly 
show, that the way to Nirvana which he (Gua- 
tama) preached, involving, as it did, the extin- 
guishing of all natural desire, either of what was 
reckoned good or evil, and the adoption of a 
celibate and mendicant life, would break up 
families, and, practically carried out, would, 
put an end to society. This charge the Buddha 
seems to have met by simply replying that what 
they thought so evil was in truth the very best 
thing that could be. Still, a social community 
outside the society of the mendicant disciples was 
an absolute necessity to the very existence of the 
latter. Beggars must have people to beg from. 
And thus it appears to have become practically 
necessary, from almost the very first, to devise 
some plan which should at once permit of the 



92 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

propagation of the new religion, while yet allow- 
ing the existence of families and business com- 
munities. This need was met by the promulga- 
tion of a secondary system of observances, which 
might be kept while yet the man need not leave 
the life of the householder. Not by these observ- 
ances, indeed, could Nirvana be attained, but 
their observance would at least render this present 
life more tolerable, and conduce in the next life 
to the attainment of conditions of existence more 
favorable than the present to the securing of that 
longed-for blessing." (Kellogg, "The Light of 
Asia and the Light of the World," pp. 61, 62.) 
Buddhist The fundamental weakness of Buddhist ethics 

Etkics appears here. It was not a morality designed to 

make men fit for human fellowship and service. 
It was a system planned to deliver men from life. 
It stamped every occupation or trade as incom- 
patible with the highest type of life. It required 
deliverance from every attachment and interest. 
Of the true Brahmana, the truly religious man, 
Gautama said: — 

Whosoever amongst men lives by different mechani- 
cal arts . . . he is an artisan, not a Brahmana. 

Whosoever amongst men lives by trade ... he is a 
merchant, not a Brahmana. 

Whosoever amongst men lives by serving others . . . 
he is a servant, not a Brahmana. 

Whosoever amongst men possesses villages and coun- 
tries ... he is a king, not a Brahmana. 

And not only work but also learning was to be 
escaped as a snare and a hindrance. The saint 



Unsocial. 



BUDDHISM 93 

is one who "is no follower of philosophical 
views, nor a friend of knowledge; and having 
penetrated the opinions that have arisen amongst 
people, he is indifferent to learning, while others 
acquire it." (Sutta Nipata; Mahaviyuha Sutta, 
17; "Sacred Books of the East," Vol. X, Part 
2, p. 174. Quoted in Kellogg, "The Light of 
Asia and the Light of the World," pp. 321, 384.) 
And not only are the ethics of Buddhism un- 
social in the sense of deprecating work and 
learning, the very essentials of human progress, 
but the whole system is radically self-centered. 
Though it denies the human personality, its 
atheism only serves to make of the human person- 
ality the center and goal of all things. Paul 
Dahlke, whom the Buddhist world has hailed as 
a prophet, says distinctly on this point, "The 
mind of Prince Siddartha, called Guatama, 
became entirely occupied with this one fact, that 
all life is sorrow, and in the strenuous concentra- 
tion of all his powers upon this one point, he 
seeks to save himself from this sorrow ... he 
seeks his own salvation, and that only. It is a 
purely egoistical impulse, but what more natural 
than that one who suddenly finds himself in a 
burning house should seek first of all to save 
himself?" The impulse may be natural, but 
public opinion, educated by the spirit of Christ, 
would not tolerate the action in a Christian coun- 
try ; the man who left women and children to burn 
would carry a stigma for the rest of his days. 



94 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Dr. Dahlke goes on to show that as in Gau- 
tama's early experience, so in his ethical system 
he shows a refined selfishness: "The greatest gift 
of love is not bestowed in the interest of the 
receiver thereof; the giver bestows it in his own 
interest. . . . The whole moral scheme in Bud- 
dhism is nothing but a sum in arithmetic set down 
by a cold clear egoism; so much as I give to 
others, so much will come again to me. . . . The 
Buddhist indeed, with sober understanding, strives 
strenuously to avoid every contact with his neigh- 
bor. If, however, the latter comes in contact 
with him, then he shall behave towards him as 
his own best welfare would demand." (Quoted 
in ''Trinity College Magazine," Kandy, June, 
1909. Article, "Are the Ethics of Buddhism 
Social?" pp. 340, 341, 343.) 
Three Other Three other points in Buddhist ethics deserve 

Weaknesses. a moment's attention. (1) However inadequate 
its negative teaching may be, it is said, at least 
Buddhism has produced a spirit of kindness and 
consideration toward life, both of men and ani- 
mals. This is true, but "in Ceylon, for example, 
where the great majority of the people are pro- 
fessed Buddhists, the Buddhist teaching as to the 
duty of benevolence does not prevent its people 
from committing more murders than any other 
people in the world (of whom trustworthy records 
exist) in proportion to their numbers." (Robin- 
son, "The Interpretation of the Character of 
Christ to Non-Christian Races," p. 72.) And it 



BUDDHISM 95 

is open to question whether animals are any 
better cared for in Buddhist lands than among us. 
(See Ferguson, "Ceylon in 1903," p. 137 f.) 
(2) The underlying principles of Gautama's 
teaching, involving a belief in the misery of 
existence and the curse of birth, reacted upon 
the conception of womanhood. She was the 
doorway of sorrow. In Buddha's original plan 
she had no place in his Order, and so was ineligi- 
ble to salvation. Indeed in Buddhism her only 
hope of reaching Nirvana is through rebirth as a 
man. (Eitel, "Three Lectures on Buddhism," 
p. 83.) "The home life is pain, the seat of 
impurity," say the Buddhist Scriptures. "So 
long as the love of man toward women, even the 
smallest, is not destroyed, so long is his mind in 
bondage." (3) But it is said Buddhism at least 
is to be admired for the spirit of toleration. In 
this regard it has been greatly praised in contrast 
to Christianity with its exclusive claims. But 
the toierance of Buddhism springs from the prin- 
ciple of indifference, from the suppression of all 
emotion and desire, from its pure subjectivism. 
"Often when a layman asks his priest 'Does 
Buddha exist,' the reply will be," writes the 
Rev. J E. Hail of Japan, " c If you believe that 
the Buddha exists, then for you he does exist; 
but if you believe that he is not existent, then for 
you he does not exist.' " Tolerance loses its 
ethical significance in such circumstances, and in 
its very nature Buddhism must lay aside any feel- 



96 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

ing of intolerance because it must lay aside all 

feelings whatever. Its heaven is the state of 

mind where nothing matters. 

Development The Buddhism which we have thus far consid- 

and Division. ered hag been in the ma ; n the Buddhism of 

Gautama and of the stream of tradition most 
faithful to the primitive faith. But no religion 
has undergone more revolutionary transformation 
than Buddhism. The radical distinction be- 
tween the Mahay ana, or Greater Vehicle, Bud- 
dhism and the Hinayana, or Small Vehicle, began, 
it may be said, on the day that Gautama died, 
and the breach has widened with each passing 
year. (Lloyd, ''Wheat Among the Tares," p. 
2f.) "The Buddhist Church of Ceylon, with 
its dependencies in Burma and 1 Siam, main- 
tained with great tenacity the original teaching 
of early Buddhism in comparative purity, while 
the Northern Buddhists, — that is to say, those of 
Northern India, Cashmere, Nepaul, and after- 
wards those of China, Tibet and Mongolia, — went 
on constantly adding to and expanding the com- 
mon stock of doctrines and traditions, and enter- 
ing into compromises with any form of popular 
superstition they found too deep-rooted and too 
popular to overcome." (Eitel, "Three Lectures 
on Buddhism," p. 23.) Yet even in the south 
Buddhism gathered up much animism, and in 
Siam and Burma to-day, and also in Ceylon 
itself, mingles the native spirit worship with the 
purer faith. It is here in the south, however, in 



BUDDHISM 97 

Cevlon, that the ancient doctrine is most firmly 
held and ardently propagated with the adaptation 
of the methods of Christian missions, and with 
skillful use of all the anti-Christian material 
which can be drawn from Western skepticism 
and destructive criticism. Southern Buddhism, 
however, has lost the greater part of its ancient 
territory, and would have lost more if it had not 
spread over the orthodox philosophy of Buddhism 
a covering of religious ideas logically at variance 
with it, but necessary to the religious nature of 
man. 

The changes introduced in Northern Buddhism, Northern 
however, were vastly greater. In Tibet the Bud- Buddhism, 
dhist clergy established a hereditary hierarchy 
which gained the mastery over all the kings rul- 
ing the country, and combined in the hands of 
the priesthood the supreme temporal and spiritual 
government of the nation, with a doctrine of per- 
petual succession of Grand Lamas, or supreme 
pontiffs, by successive reincarnation. When each 
Grand Lama dies, search is at once made for the 
babe in whom he is supposed to have become 
reincarnate. The Tibetan Church is a great 
organization, duplicating the whole scheme of 
the Roman Catholic Church, "with its shaven 
priests, its bells, and rosaries, its images, and 
holy water, and gorgeous dresses; its service 
with double choirs, and processions, and creeds, 
and mystic rites, and incense, in which the laity 
are spectators only; its abbots and monks, and 



98 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

nuns of many grades; its worship of the double 
Virgin, and of the saints and angels; its fasts, 
confessions, and purgatory; its images, its idols, 
and its pictures; its huge monasteries, and its 
gorgeous cathedrals, its powerful hierarchy, its 
cardinals, its pope ... in spite of the essential 
difference of its teachings, and of its mode of 
thought." (Rhys Davids, "Buddhism," p. 
250.) Buddhism introduced a literary culture 
and some measure of civilization into Tibet, but 
it appears never to have lifted a ringer against the 
custom of polyandry. Indeed Lamaism sanc- 
tioned it. As a result, the Buddhist Tibetans do 
not increase in numbers, and immorality, nurtured 
by polyandry, has undermined the powers of 
increase of the people. ("The Pioneer," Alla- 
habad, India, Oct. 26, 1908, citing Francke, 
"History of Western Tibet.") In religion the 
Tibetan Buddhists are notable for their labor-sav- 
ing contrivances, the prayer wheels and prayer 
mills and praying flags in which written prayers 
are rotated by wind, or water, or mechanical 
device. But it is not all form. At Lhassa, the 
capital of Tibet, "in the evening, just as the day 
is verging on its decline," says a French mis- 
sionary, "all the Tibetans stop business and meet 
together, men, women and children, according to 
their sex and age, in the principal parts of the 
town and in the public squares. As soon as 
groups are formed, every one kneels down and 
they begin slowly and in undertones to chant 



BUDDHISM 99 

prayers. The religious concerts produced by 
these numerous assemblages create throughout 
the town a solemn harmony, which operates 
forcibly on the soul. The first time we witnessed 
this spectacle, we could not help drawing a pain- 
ful comparison between this pagan town, where 
all prayed together, and the cities of Europe, 
where people would blush to make the sign of the 
cross in public." (Monier Williams, "Bud- 
dhism," p. 386.) 

Passing north from Tibet into China and The Two 
Japan, we see that Buddhism has undergone even Vehicles, 
greater changes. In India and Siam and Burma 
Buddhism has remained the Buddhism of the 
Hinayana system, that is, the "Little Vehicle," a 
name referring to the way in which the faith 
offered to convey the believer across the seas of 
sorrow into the haven of Nirvana. It is the 
small conveyance, the little vehicle, because the 
forms of doctrine and worship were plain and 
few, but exacting, compared with the elaborate 
schemes and ampler views of the Mahayana sys- 
tem, or the School of the Great Vehicle. The 
Hinayana was the small road to salvation. It 
opened the door to the few who could meet the 
'narrow requirements. The Mahayana was the 
broad road, open to all, aiming to uplift the whole 
of mankind to the Buddhist salvation and to 
increase to the highest possible degree the num- 
ber of ways or means for the obtaining of blessed- 
ness. (De Groot, "The Religion of the Chinese, 



100 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

p. 166.) Some trace the two schools back to 
Buddha's own teaching, which contained the 
dual doctrine of a hard and an easy salvation, 
lessons for beginners and lessons for the more 
advanced. (Lloyd, "Transactions of The Asiatic 
Society of Japan," Vol. XII, Part III, p. 343). 
It is clear that the more advanced and expanded 
doctrines of the Mahayana open the wider and 
more varied methods of salvation. These devel- 
opments of Buddhism have carried it forward into 
many forms entirely inconsistent with Gautama's 
original doctrine, into polytheism and idolatry, 
into the deification of Buddha himself, into the 
wildest superstition and into theistic forms which 
are a good preparation for Christianity. We 
have theistic, polytheistic, mystical, hierarchical, 
ceremonial and ritualistic Buddhism, — systems 
and ideas so contradictory that a hopeful student 
of Chinese Buddhism, contrasting with the old 
Buddhism of Gautama the Buddhism of Ashva- 
gosha's "Awakening of Faith," declares that 

1. The Old Buddhism was atheistic; the New is 
theistic. 

2. The Old Buddhism trusted in salvation by one's 
own efforts (Karma); the New trusted in the help of 
God as well. 

3. The Old Buddhism believed in retirement from 
the evil world; the New believed in living in the world 
and in saving others as the highest virtue. 

4. The Old Buddhism believed in countless transmi- 
grations before the many could be delivered; the New 
believed in passing into Paradise at once without any 
rounds of transmigration. 



BUDDHISM 101 

(Richard's translation of Ashvagosha's "The 
Awakening of Faith," p. 12 f. ) Yet all these 
contradictories pass under the name of Buddhism! 
It must be confessed, however, that the new Bud- 
dhism which Dr. Richard finds in "The Awaken- 
ing of Faith," though the book was translated 
into Chinese in the sixth century, has not been 
the form of Buddhism prevalent in China. Jap- 
anese Buddhism has come much nearer to it. 
"Of the 26,000 Buddhist monks and nuns in 
Japan," says Dr. Richard, "no less than 17,000 
belong to the Pure Land School and the True 
School, which regard this book as their fountain 
and origin." ("The Awakening of Faith," p. 
5.) 

As early as the middle of the third century B. Buddhism in 
C. Buddhist missionaries visited China, and at China, 
once arrayed themselves on the side of the popu- 
lar animistic superstition and of Taoism, in 
opposition to Confucianism. For three centuries 
the Buddhist propaganda met with no success, 
until, in consequence of a dream of the Emperor 
Ming Li in the year 61 A. D., an embassy was 
dispatched to Cashmere and India to bring the 
religion officially to China, and in consequence 
Buddhism became the imperial faith. It has 
never found favor, however, in the eyes of Con- 
fucianism, which despises it as superstition, and 
has again and again, in the history of China, 
made war upon it. (De Groot, "The Religion of 
the Chinese," Ch. VII.) But it conciliated Con- 



102 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

fucianism by its contribution to the ceremonial 
adornment of ancestor worship, and it combined 
with Taoism to minister to those religious neces- 
sities which Confucianism ignored but could not 
annul. In consequence, while almost all Chinese 
are Confucianists in theory, and most of them 
will declare Buddhism to be heresy, in practice 
they combine Buddhist rites with the ceremony 
of ancestor worship, and at weddings and funerals, 
in times of sickness and emergency, they resort to 
the Buddhist priests or temples. How far Chi- 
nese Buddhism has departed from the Middle 
Way of Gautama, which rejected on the one hand 
the pleasures of sense and on the other all trust 
in ritual and ceremony, and walked between 
worldliness and superstition, is evidenced by 
almost every feature of the Chinese religious 
life, — its ceaseless worldly concern, its grotesque 
idolatry, and the lurid symbolism of its hells, 
whose terrors inspire men to righteousness. 
Confucianism and the Chinese character are 
responsible for the worldly concern, but the 
superstition, the sense of abject dependence upon 
unseen powers, the puerile worship and the 
nobler conception of deities like Kwan Yin, the 
goddess of mercy, are the reaction of men's 
hearts, naturally religious, against the teaching of 
Gautama that left men without any divine fellow- 
ship or help, in the midst of forces whose mystery 
the Buddhist metaphysics could not dispel. Yet 
though the type of Buddhism developed in China 



BUDDHISM 103 

influences the mass of the people, nevertheless, as 
a whole, they have little respect for the Buddhist 
Church and habitually sneer at the Buddhist 
priests. The Tai-ping rebels wiped out the sys- 
tem wherever they went; and the present educa- 
tional reformation in China does not scruple to 
appropriate the temples and their revenues for 
the purposes of the new schools. Beal sums up 
the moral and social effect of Buddhism upon the 
Chinese people by saying, "Whilst it has not* 
answered any great end in raising the religious 
. tone of the masses of the people, it has certainly 
tended to promote a love of morality, and a 
healthy state of society, by guarding it against 
vice or profligacy; and it has helped to raise the 
mind to a love of the beautiful in nature, and 
assisted in the advancement of art and litera- 
ture. ... It did nothing, however, to promote 
the knowledge of the true God, nor has it sup- 
plied any substitute for the worship of Shang-ti, 
the lord and maker of the world ; and what it has 
given in lieu of this, viz., a somewhat meaning- 
less spiritualism, will hardly compensate for the 
loss of the great thought of a c supreme, personal 
Ruler' directing and governing the world." 
(Beal, "Buddhism in China," pp. 259, 254. 
Nevius, "China and the Chinese," Ch. VII, 
VIII.) 

Buddhism has reached somewhat worthier In Japan. 
developments in Japan. It came thither by way 
of Korea in the sixth century. "Introduced at an 



104 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

opportune moment," says Professor Takakusu in 
the chapter on Buddhism in Count Okuma's 
"Fifty Years of New Japan," "Buddhism was 
welcomed by all classes, and the majority of the 
people soon became its adherents. It is needless 
to say how powerful was its influence over the 
formation of beliefs and moral principles; and 
this influence extended to politics, education, 
literature, industry, and art; in fact, there was 
"nothing that was not impregnated with Buddhism, 
or influenced by its priests. In other w r ords, the 
ancient civilization of Japan owed its rise to 
Buddhism. There is one strange fact connected 
with the introduction of the religion into Japan 
which is worthy of notice; namely, that, whilst 
on the Continent the original spirit of Buddhism 
was forgotten, and its adherents clung to a cor- 
rupt form, as soon as it was brought into Japan 
it underwent a refining process. The corrupt 
forms were rejected, and only that which seemed 
to the Japanese pure and good was retained, to be 
remodeled, as it were, and formed into the Bud- 
dhism of Japan. It was not, therefore, a mere 
transplanting of the Buddhism of India, China, 
Annam, or of Korea, but a new and distinct form 
of religion. It was through this that Japan 
happily escaped from being poisoned by the 
unhealthy forms prevalent on the Continent." 
("Fifty Years of New Japan," Vol. II, p. 65 f.) 
Stintoism. Buddhism had to gain its place, however, in 

conflict with Shintoism, the indigenous cult, akin 






BUDDHISM 105 

to the ancestral worship of China. The word 
Shinto means the Divine Way, the Way of the 
Gods. Although based on ancestor worship, it 
is not an idolatry, — no images appear in its 
temples. It cultivates the idea of purity, or 
rather cleanliness. It practices prayer and, in a 
sense, sacrifice. It is, above all, the religion of 
loyalty. 

The central conception of Shinto is expressed by the 
word kami, which is a comprehensive term applicable 
to anything which is high, or above oneself, whether 
deity or emperor or feudal chief. It can even denote 
elevation in space, as a mountain top or the hair on the 
head. 

In practice, Shinto is the organized expression of 
Japanese patriotism. The emperor is the kami. Japan 
is the Holy Land. "The Kami's will is the Emperor's 
will," is a maxim dear to the heart of the Japanese. 
The effect is that the government of Japan is regarded 
as a theocracy, and reverence is inculcated as the proper 
attitude of the mind of the individual in relation to the 
State. 

This reverence extends to the family. Indeed it may 
be said to extend from the family to the State. In 
social life the individual is nothing, the family is every- 
thing; and the State is the national, all-inclusive 
family, with the emperor at its head. Thus the prin- 
ciple which teaches reverence to parents and ancestors, 
exalts the emperor above all. 

As a cult, Shinto takes shape in ceremonial and in 
poetical liturgies which are chanted by the priests. It 
is indeed a system of national ceremonial, and is so 
regarded by the Japanese. It does not now claim to be 
a religion in the sense in which Buddhism is a religion. 
and it offers no direct opposition to other religions. 



106 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Shinto has no moral code. The one principle of this 
kind which it emphasizes is that of Makoto (Truth). 
Out of this principle developed the system of knightly 
honor called Bushido. 

"Shinto," writes Baron Keiroku Tsuzuki, "is a 
crystallized system of rites for the veneration of the 
personalities closely connected with our existence and 
our national history ; in other words, a systematized and 
complicated form of taking off our hats before the 
emblems of our ancestors and national heroes." (Re- 
port of Commission IV, World Missionary Conference, 
Edinburgh, Ch. IV.) 

Shintoism has in recent years disavowed any 
religious character; yet there is an esoteric 
Shintoism which is a practical mysticism, even a 
god-possession. (''Transactions of the Asiatic 
Society of Japan, ' ' Vol. XXI. Papers by Percival 
Lowell, "Esoteric Shinto," pp. 106-135, 152- 
197, 241-270. ) And there is a religious eclecticism 
in Japan to-day which finds a quasi-religious 
place for Shinto. "In what religion, then, do I 
believe? I cannot answer that question directly," 
says Professor Kume. "I turn to the Shinto 
priest in case of public festivals, while the 
Buddhist priest is my ministrant for funeral 
services. I regulate my conduct according to 
Confucian maxims and Christian morals. I care 
little for external forms, and doubt whether there 
are any essential differences, in the kami's eyes, 
between any of the religions of the civilized 
world. " (Okuma, " Fifty Years of New Japan, " 
Vol. II, p. 41.) Shinto was no satisfaction of 



BUDDHISM 107 

the religious needs of Japan in the sixth century, 
and Buddhism found its way to the nation's 
heart. 

In Japan the religion underwent a varied devel- 
opment. On the one hand its usages were 
adapted to the comprehension of the multitude in 
symbols and parables and allegories. Falsehood 
and superstition and charms and debasing rites 
came into the religion. But on the other hand 
earnest men who saw the impossibility of salva- 
tion through philosophy and asceticism and med- 
itation found a means of salvation by faith. 
(Knox, "The Development of Religion in 
Japan," p. 192 f. For illustration, see "The 
Monist, " January, 1894. Article by Z. Ashitsu, 
"The Fundamental Teachings of Buddhism.") 
Between these extremes twelve sects of Buddhism 
arose, and so wide was the variance of most of 
these from Buddha's doctrine, as was the case in 
China as well, that judged by their teachings, 
Buddha himself was not a Buddhist. Here 
again, however, we must beware of judging too 
harshly. Have there not been developments of 
Christianity in which Jesus would not recognize 
His religion? 

Japan, impelled by its racial appetite for im- Japan Dissat- 
provement, has never been satisfied with any isfied with 
form of Buddhism. The old systems have a BuddKiam. 
powerful hold upon the nation, that is not yet 
relaxed, but they are undergoing to-day a deep 
transformation, and a new Buddhism is taking 



108 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

form which is ethical and eclectic (see "The 
New Buddhism," "The Japan Daily Mail," 
March 31, 1892), while increasing numbers of 
the educated men are turning away from the 
ancient religions altogether. The religious 
appeal of Japan may be set forth in four random 
but typical quotations: — 

1. Editorial in "The Japan Times," Septem- 
ber 3, 1910: "'Whatever pretension Buddhism 
may set forth in other directions, it certainly and 
absolutely has no claim to make in this particular 
respect; that is, in the work of the moral, intel- 
lectual and social elevation of new Japan." 

2. Editorial in "The Seoul Press," August 
17, 1910: "We believe few will contradict us 
when we say that Buddhism is on the wane, and 
provided that everything goes on as it is going 
now, is doomed to perish, sooner or later, in the 
Island Empire. ... In fact the nation as a 
whole regards Buddhism with cold indiffer- 
ence. . . . To cut it short, Buddhism is dying 
in Japan, and scarcely holds its place as a reli- 
gion in the minds of the Japanese younger men. 
It is not a power having great influence in the 
shaping of their moral character." 

3. Kanzo Uchimura's "An Anglo- Japanese 
Conversation on Japanese Men and Things": 
"They say Buddhism is the most philosophical 
religion in the world; do you think so too?" 

"Yes, if by 'philosophical' you mean 'meta- 
physical.' No religion has so many loopholes in 






BUDDHISM 109 

its philosophical system as Buddhism. Indeed, 
it seems to be the sum total of all religions. 
The fact that there is everything in it may prove 
that there is nothing in it." 

"But you cannot deny the great good it has 
done to our country." 

"Yes, it has done much good, and it has done 
much evil also. It has taught us mercy to the 
poor and worms, but on the great questions of 
Liberty and Equality, it has been entirely silent. 
Buddhism makes a recluse, but not a hero and 
patriot." (P. 91 f.) 

4. Count Okuma at the Jubilee of Protestant 
Missions in Japan, October, 1909: "To be sure, 
Japan had her religions, and Buddhism prospered 
greatly; but this prosperity was largely through 
political means. Now this creed has been prac- 
tically rejected by the better classes, who, being 
spiritually thirsty, have nothing to drink." 
("The Japan Daily Mail," October 9, 1909.) 

There is a Living Water which can quench 
this thirst, but it is not in Buddhism. 

We come, then, at the close to ask what are the 
contrasts and the points of contact between Chris- 
tianity and Buddhism. 

The Contrasts. Gautama's doctrine and the Contrasts 
doctrine of philosophical Buddhism denies God. -Between ^ 
There is accordingly no sin in the Christian con- f 18 ianity 

and 

ception of the word. It also denies the human B U( idnism 
soul. Without sin to be saved from, or God to 
be saved by and to, or a soul to be saved at all, 



110 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

there is, in the Christian sense, no salvation. 
The Buddhist Catechism summarizes the differ- 
ence between the two religions: — 

What is the principal difference between Buddhism 
and other religions? 

Buddhism teaches perfect goodness and wisdom with- 
out a personal god ; the highest knowledge without a 
revelation ; a moral world order and just retribution, 
carried out with necessity by reason of the laws of 
nature and of our own being; continued existence with- 
out an immortal soul ; eternal bliss without a local 
heaven ; the possibility of redemption without a vicarious 
redeemer; a salvation at which every one is his own 
saviour, and which can be attained in this life and on 
this earth by the exercise of one's own faculties without 
prayers, sacrifices, penances, and ceremonies, without 
ordained priests, without the mediation of saints, and 
without divine grace. 

But there are more differences than these. Sir 
Monier Williams draws out the list in his last 
lecture on Buddhism: — 

According to Christianity : Fight and overcome the 
world. 

According to Buddhism : Shun the world, and with- 
draw from it. 

According to Christianity : Expect a new earth when 
the present earth is destroyed ; a world renewed and 
perfected ; a purified world in which righteousness is to 
dwell forever. 

According to Buddhism : Expect a never-ending suc- 
cession of evil worlds forever coming into existence, 
developing, decaying, perishing, and reviving, and all 
equally full of everlasting misery, disappointment, illu- 
sion, change and transmutation. 



BUDDHISM 111 

According to Christianity, bodily existence is subject 
to only one transformation. 

According to Buddhism, bodily existence is contin- 
ued in six conditions, through countless bodies of men, 
animals, demons, ghosts, and dwellers in various hells 
and heavens ; and that, too, without any progressive 
development, but in a constant jumble of metamor- 
phoses and transmutations. 

Christianity teaches that a life in heaven can never 
be followed by a fall to a lower state. 

Buddhism teaches that a life in a higher heaven may 
be succeeded by a life in a lower heaven, or even by a 
life on earth or in one of the hells. 

According to Christianity, the body of man may be 
the abode of the Holy Spirit of God. 

According to Buddhism, the body, whether of men or 
of higher beings, can never be the abode of anything but 
evil. 

According to Christianity : Present your bodies as 
living sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God, and expect a 
change to glorified bodies hereafter. 

According to Buddhism: Look to final deliverance 
from all bodily life, present and to come, as the greatest 
of all blessings, highest of all boons, and loftiest of all 
aims. 

According to Christianity, a man's body can never be 
changed into the body of a beast, or bird, or insect, or 
loathsome vermin. 

According to Buddhism, a man, and even a god, may 
become an animal of any kind, and even the most 
loathsome vermin may again become a man or a god. 

According to Christianity : Stray not from God's 
ways ; offend not against his holy laws. 

According to Buddhism : Stray not from the eight- 
fold path of the perfect man, and offend not against 
yourself and the law of the perfect man. 

According to Christianity : Work the works of God 
while it is day. 



112 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

According to Buddhism : Beware of action, as caus- 
ing rebirth, and aim at inaction, indifference, and 
apathy, as the highest of all states. ("Buddhism," p. 
559 f . ) 

Buddha offered men no help. Each man must 
do everything for himself, working out his own 
salvation in fear and trembling or in joy and con- 
fidence, but preferably with no feelings whatever, 
knowing that God was not working in him or for 
him, and that there was indeed no God at all. 
Buddhism is a religion of unselfishness, but it is 
not a religion of service. It lacks the idea of 
duty either to God or to men. "From first to 
last the sacred books are terribly consistent in 
failing to recognize any sort of 'obligation. ' . . . 
(The Buddhist) has no aim in life except to 
escape from it." (Copleston, "Buddhism, " p. 
150 f. ) This is the radical defect of Buddhism. 
Its idea of self-abnegation sprang not "from a 
lively conviction of the impermanency and 
unreality of the world of sense, not from that 
aspiration after communing with a being of per- 
fectly unselfish goodness, which kindled the 
genius of Plato and forms the deep root of Chris- 
tian morality. Unconsciously impressed by the 
grandeur of the life of the universe as something 
boundless, permanent and absolute, the founder 
of Buddhism had nothing but contempt for the 
individual personal life as something narrow, 
transitory and finite. He enjoined absolute un- 
selfishness, not because selfishness appeared to 



BUDDHISM 113 

him mean and demeaning in itself, not because 
he recognized unselfishness as something noble 
and ennobling in itself, but because all individu- 
ality, all personal life, was utterly worthless to his 
mind. He wished men to sink in themselves, 
not that they might thereby rise in God, but 
simply because he conceived existence to be in 
itself an absolute evil and the source of all 
misery. " (Eitel, "Three Lectures on Bud- 
dhism," p. 79.) 

Cut off then from the true joy of life's struggle 
for character as an agency for work, and from the 
active help of a living and loving God, Bud- 
dhism lacks the power which Christianity pos- 
sesses. Mr. Iwahashi is a Christian evangelist 
at Gobo, Japan. In 1907 the devout Buddhists 
of Gobo, desiring to check the spread of Chris- 
tianity, sent for the famous priest Shaku Soyen, 
who was one of the representatives of the Japan- 
ese Buddhists at the World's Parliament of Reli- 
gions, at Chicago, in 1893. Mr. Iwahashi was 
at one time a student under him. When he came 
to Gobo, where Mr. Iwahashi is at work, Mr. 
Iwahashi called to pay his respects. Shaku 
asked Mr. Iwahashi what he was doing. He 
said, "I have now become a Christian and am 
preaching Jesus." Shaku replied, "The Chris- 
tian religion is a religion that has a power over 
the lives of men that I long to see in our Bud- 
dhism." 

The Points of Contact. First of all, Buddhism 



114 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



Points of 

Contact 

Bet-ween 

Christianity 

and 

Buddhism. 



rested on the foundation of some great truths 
which we joyfully recognize as Christian, which, 
however confused in later developments, have 
never been lost, and which in some of the modi- 
fications which the religion has undergone have 
been enriched and drawn nearer still to the truths 
of Christianity. It began with the recognition 
of the evil and limitation of life as our mortal 
inheritance, and the assertion of a nobler and 
freer destiny for man. It insisted on the vital 
relation of conduct to character and of character 
to man's destiny. "It pointed out in the strong- 
est terms the impermanency and hollowness of 
everything earthly. It exhorted its devotees to 
extend love and charity to man and beast. It 
marked selfishness, lust and passion as the chief 
enemies of human happiness. It pointed out the 
superiority of the inward life over outward exist- 
ence. It taught its adherents to look away from 
earthly sensual objects to regions invisible, and 
inspired them — at least to a certain extent — with 
hopes of immortality." (Eitel, " Three Lectures 
on Buddhism," p. 94 f. ) All this was in the 
Buddhism of Gautama. Latent there, also, lay 
that discovery of man's impotence to achieve 
alone his own character and destiny to which 
Buddhism later came. Gautama claimed that he 
himself had attained, but the whole subsequent 
history of Buddhism has been a search for supple- 
ments, such supplements as are found in their 
adequacy only in Christianity. 



BUDDHISM 115 

And it is in the later developments that the 
chief points of contact with Christianity are 
found. Buddhism, in these developments, 
abandoned its atheism and, "most wonderful of 
all, raised the denier of God's existence to the 
throne of the Supreme." ("The Chinese Re- 
corder, ' ' May, 1889. Article by W. A. P. Martin, 
"Is Buddhism a Preparation for Christianity ?" 
p. 196.) In the Saddharma Pundarika, Sakya- 
muni is the fullness of God. "He, begotten 
before all worlds, is the sum total of all that is 
divine or that is worshiped in the whole uni- 
verse. He is the sole Lord that claims allegiance ; 
the other Buddhas, the Gods, and the Saints, are 
but partial emanations of the One Divine Essence 
which has become Human in Sakyamuni." 
(Lloyd, "Wheat Among the Tares," p. 94.) In 
the Shin Shu sect of Japanese Buddhism, the 
transformed faith of Gautama either is or is like 
a new Asiatic version of central Christian truth. 
The essence of this teaching is the doctrine of the 
Saving Vow of Amida, which forms the faith of 
the most religious portion of the Japanese nation. 

Amida is the One Buddha, a Being of infinite life 
and light, without beginning of life or end of days. 
Countless ages ago he, out of his mercy, became man, — 
his Japanese name being Hozo Biku, — and in his human 
form and for man undertook austerities and penances 
until he was able as man to return to that glorified state 
from which he had descended. But, before returning, 
he registered a vow not to accept his glory until he had 
worked out a way of salvation for mankind — an easy 
way, which should not depend on man's individual 



116 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

exertions. Having made his vow, he established a 
Paradise, and decreed that faith in his name and vow 
should suffice to enable the greatest sinner to enter and 
be saved. . . . Amida has a spiritual son, Avalokites- 
vara, incarnate again and again, on errands of mercy 
from his Father — as Sakvamuni, for instance, and again 
as Christ (as many a Buddhist will acknowledge) — in 
divers forms and persons. He has an attendant, Seishi, 
in whom resides his wisdom, and the three form a 
Trinity whom the Amidaist will recognize as claiming 
his worship. 

"Be its origin what it will, here is a faith so 
wonderfully like Christianity that it is difficult to 
resist the inference that it was, in the Divine 
Providence, intended as aftraefiaratio evangelica 
for the gospel in Japan. It is theological, — it 
recognizes man as a sinner, it preaches the gospel 
to the poor, and it has a salvation by Faith in a 
Saviour who has done everything for the soul." 
(Report of Commission IV, World Missionary 
Conference, Edinburgh, Ch. IV.) Most mis- 
sionaries feel that these resemblances may be 
pressed too far. Dr. Imbrie and Dr. Ibuka sug- 
gest the warning that ''the gods of Buddhism are 
all purely subjective creations of the mind, as 
subjective as the angels of Gnosticism; mere per- 
sonifications or apotheoses of what is craved for 
by the heart of Buddhism. In Christ God has 
revealed Himself in history. Amida is only a 
cry for light; Christ is the light of the world." 
Further, they add, "'At times in Buddhism it 
seems as if pantheism were giving way to theism. 
Amida, Kwannon, and many others are conceived 



BUDDHISM 117 

of as persons. But the conception of supernatural 
beings called gods falls far short of the concep- 
tion of the infinite, eternal, unchangeable God 
which is vital to Christianity, and without which 
any religion is anti-Christian. If there are those 
who hope to discover in Shintoism or Buddhism 
much that is comparable with w r hat is found in 
Judaism as points of contact with, or preparation 
for, Christianity, they will be disappointed ; and if 
there are any who think to find in the non-Chris- 
tian religions of the world great truths that will 
complement Christianity, they will not find them 
in Japan." (Report of Commission IV, World 
Missionary Conference, Edinburgh, Ch. IV.) 

The great point of contact with Buddhism is 
in the human needs which it discovers but cannot 
satisfy. (1) Buddhism tells men of no god or of 
many gods. Men cannot rest in this. Chris- 
tianity satisfies them with God. As one Japanese 
said, "The first thing that attracted me to Chris- 
tianity was the grandeur of the Christian concep- 
tion of God — Infinite, Eternal, and yet Personal. 
That led me to think more and more of Chris- 
tianity, and Christ was Master of my heart before 
I knew it." Kanzo Uchimura, in his "Diary of 
a Japanese Convert," tells us how this truth 
delivered him. "I was taught that there was but 
One God in the Universe, and not many — over- 
eight millions, as I had formerly believed. The 
Christian monotheism laid its axe to the root of 
all my superstitions. All the vows I had made, 



118 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

and the manifold forms of worship with which I 
had been attempting to appease my angry gods 
could now be dispensed with by owning this One 
God; and my reason and conscience responded 
'yea!' One God, and not many, was indeed glad 
tidings to my little soul." (2) Buddhism gives 
men an ethical ideal, but it is inadequate. They 
needs must recognize the higher when they see it. 
"I studied Christianity for the sake of finding 
fault with it, " said a priest of the Ikko Shin sect. 
"After a thorough study of Christ, I have not 
been able to find a single fault, but Christ has 
pointed out a thousand faults in me, and now I 
want to dedicate myself to Him for my whole 
life." (3) Buddha tells men of life's weary 
burden and offers them the hope of death. But 
the burden is not lifted, and death is but dreary 
cheer. Christ speaks and His word answers 
every need: — 

Come unto me and I will give you rest. 
I am come that ye may have life and that ye may 
have it abundantly. 

If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. 

BIBLE READING 

First cnapter of Ephesians. 

QUESTIONS 

What are Jie special reasons for Western interest in 
Buddhism? 

Is Buddhism properly a religion? Can a religion 
exist without a belief in God? 

How did Buddhism arise? 



BUDDHISM 119 

Who are the Jains ? 

Narrate the life of Gautama. 

Describe the missionary extension of Buddhism. 

What are the sacred books of Buddhism? 

What was Buddha's doctrine? What were the Four 
Noble Truths? What was the Noble Eightfold Path? 

Was Buddha an atheist and a materialist? 

What is Karma? What is Nirvana? 

Describe the ethics of Buddhism and give its Ten 
Commandments. 

Describe the priesthood. 

What were the great weaknesses of Buddhism? 

Give some account of the division and development 
of Buddhism. 

Give some account of Buddhism in China and Japan. 

Describe Shintoism. 

What are the contrasts between Buddhism and Chris- 
tianity? 

What the points of contact? 

SELECTED REFERENCE BOOKS 

Monier Williams, "Buddhism in its Connection with 
Brahmanism and Hinduism and in its Contrast 
with Christianity," Macmillan, 1889. 

Rhys Davids, "Buddhism," Gorham, 1894. 

Rhys Davids, "Hibbert Lectures," Scribner, 1881. 

Kellogg, "The Light of Asia and the Light of the 
• World," Macmillan, 1885. 

Eitel, "Three Lectures on Buddhism," Lane, Crawford 
& Co., 1884. 

Dods, "Mohammed, Buddha and Christ," Hodder & 
Stoughton, 1893. 

Hardy, "Manual of Buddhism," Williams & Norgate, 
1880. 

Beal, "Buddhism in China," Gorham, 1884. 

Griffis, "The Religions of Japan," Scribner, 1895. 

Lloyd, "Wheat Among the Tares," Macmillan, 1908. 

Aston, "The Way of the Gods." 



CHAPTER III. 
ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM AND TAOISM 



CHAPTER III 

ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM AND TAOISM 

It may seem incongruous, at first thought, to 
group together the religion of the primitive 
mind, of the lowest races, which we call animism, 
and the sober political philosophy of the Chinese. 
In the case of the animist, or spirit worshiper, all 
life is peopled with unseen, supernatural forms 
which must be dealt with. In the case of the 
Chinese, it has been often supposed, the unseen 
world is of small interest. The attitude of Con- 
fucius is assumed to represent the Chinese mind 
of all the centuries, and especially its materialistic 
cast to-day. "Extraordinary things," we are 
told of Confucius in the Analects, "feats of 
strength, states of disorder, and spiritual beings 
he did not like to talk about." The Analects 
tell us, also, that "Ke Loo asked about serving 
the spirits of the dead, and the master said, 
'While you are not able to serve men, how can 
you serve spirits?' The disciple added, 'I ven- 
ture to ask about death, ' and he was answered, 
'While you do not know life, how can you know 
about death.' " (Legge, "The Life and Teach- 
ings of Confucius," p. 101.) "To give one's 
self earnestly," said Confucius, "to the duties 
due to men, and, while respecting spiritual 
beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called 



124 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

wisdom." (P. 102.) In this view of the 
Chinese it has been said that they are a people 
without religion. "This people," said Dr. 
Fairhairn, "has a so attenuated religious faculty 
or genius that it can hardly be said ever to have 
known religion." ("Studies in the Philosophy 
of Religion and History," p. 310.) 
The Chinese On the other hand, it may be fairly argued that 

a Religious thg Chinese are and have always been a very 
eop c * religious people. "I, from my observations," 

wrote Ernst Faber, an old Rhenish missionary 
and one of the ablest students of Chinese thought, 
"feel inclined to maintain that the Chinese be- 
long perhaps to the most religious people (Acts 
xvii, 22, original) of the world. Only we must 
not look for any symptoms of religion similar to 
those to which we are accustomed in Christian 
lands. There are, however, comparatively more 
temples and altars, more idols and more religious 
practices in China than in almost all other coun- 
tries. The whole public and private life is im- 
pregnated by religious observations; we see every 
important action of the government, as well as 
almost every movement in private life, inaugu- 
rated by different religious rites." (Faber, 
"Introduction to the Science of Chinese Reli- 
gion," p. 8 f.) 

How profound the religious spirit of the 
Chinese is, and indeed how indestructible is the 
religious instinct in humanity, we may learn 
from the fact that Confucianism, with its practi- 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 125 

cally naturalistic or agnostic influence, has not 
been able to extirpate it. Beneath and back of 
Confucianism lies the deep and ancient religious 
mind of China. As the Hon. Pung Kwang Yu 
said in his paper on Confucianism at the Parlia- 
ment of Religions: — 

There are some Western scholars who say that the 
system of doctrines of Confucius cannot properly be 
called a religion, and there are others who say that 
China has no religion of her own. That the ethical 
systems of Confucius cannot be called a religion may 
be admitted without fear of contradiction, but that 
China has no religion of her own must be taken as not 
well founded in fact. . . . There were priests in China 
as far back as the time of Hwang Ti. Among the official 
titles of ancient times were the Grand Dispenser, the 
Grand Administrator, Grand Historiographer, the 
Grand Hierarch, the Grand Scholar, and the Grand 
Diviner. These were the six ministers that composed 
the Grand Council of State. The Grand Hierarch was 
the head of the priesthood. "In ancient times," say 
the traditions of Tsoh, "there were persons who were 
known by their singleness of heart ; who were dignified in 
bearing and upright in life ; whose understandings were 
such as to enable them to get at the inner meaning of 
things above and things below ; whose wisdom shed 
light far and wide, whose sight was so clear that things 
appeared to them as if illumined by a strong light ; and 
whose hearing was so acute that they could detect the 
faintest sound. Upon such the Divine Spirit often 
descended. ... A form of religion was practiced in 
China not only long before the appearance of the Con- 
fucian school, but also long before the appearance of 
any of the great religious founders who formulated the 
grand systems of religious belief. ("Report of Parlia- 
ment of Religions," Vol. 1, p. 378 f.) 



126 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

China's In this ancient religion of China which pre- 

Pnmitive ceded Confucianism and Taoism and Buddhism, 

e igion. an j wn j cn underlies them all to-day and finds 

expression through them in spite of its logical 
discord with the views of Confucius and Lao-tsze 
and Buddha, there were two elements, one an 
elementary monotheism and the other a crude 
animism. And it is this primitive animism still 
dominating the Chinese mind which makes it 
appropriate to group animism with the religions 
of China, and not only appropriate but necessary, 
if we are to understand the religious mind of 
China. This is the view of the latest and best 
students of China's religions. As Professor 
DeGroot says: — 

The primeval form of the religion of the Chinese, 
and its very core to this day, is Animism. It is then 
the same element which is also found to be the root, 
the central nerve, of many primeval religions, the same 
even which eminent thinkers of our time, as Herbert 
Spencer, have put in the foreground of their systems as 
the beginning of all human religion of whatever kind. 

In China it is based on an implicit belief in the ani- 
mation of the universe, and of every being or thing 
which exists in it. The oldest and holiest books of the 
empire teach that the universe consists of two souls or 
breaths, called Yang and Yin, the Yang representing 
light, warmth, productivity, and life, also the heavens 
from which all these good things emanate ; and the Yin 
being associated with darkness, cold, death and the 
earth. The Yang is subdivided into an indefinite num- 
ber of good souls or spirits, called shen, the Yin into 
particles or evil spirits, called kwei, specters ; it is these 
shen and kwei which animate every being and every 



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China — One of the Gods of the Chinese 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 127 

thing. It is they also which constitute the soul of man. 
His shen, also called hwun, immaterial, ethereal, like 
heaven itself from which it emanates, constitutes his 
intellect and the finer parts of his character, his virtues; 
while his kwei, or poh, is thought to represent his less 
refined qualities, his passions, vices, they being bor- 
rowed from material earth. Birth consists in an infu- 
sion of these souls ; death in their departure, the shen 
returning to the Vang or heaven, the kwei to the Yin 
or earth. 

Thus man is an intrinsic part of the universe, a 
microcosmos, born from the macrocosmos spontane- 
ously. But why should man alone be endowed by the 
universe with a dual soul? Every animal, every plant, 
even every object which we are wont to call a dead 
object, has received from the universe the souls which 
constitute its life, and which may confer blessing on 
man or may harm him. A shen in fact, being a part 
of the Yang or the beatific half of the universe, is gen- 
erally considered to be a good spirit or god ; a kwei, 
however, belonging to the Yin or other half, is, as a 
rule, a spirit of evil, we should say a devil, specter, 
demon. There is no good in nature but that which 
comes from the shen or gods ; no evil but that which 
the kwei cause or inflict. 

With these dogmata before us, may we not say that 
the main base of the Chinese system of religion is a Uni- 
versalistic Animism? The universe being in all its 
parts crowded with shen and kwei, that system is, more- 
over, thoroughly polytheistic and polydemonistic. The 
gods are such shen as animate heaven, sun, moon, the 
stars, wind, rain, clouds, thunder, fire, the earth, seas, 
mountains, rivers, rocks, stones, animals, plants, things 
— in particular also the souls of deceased men. And as 
to the demon world, nowhere under heaven is it so 
populous as in China. Kwei swarm everywhere, in 
numbers inestimable. ... 



128 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

The shen thus being gods from whom good proceeds, 
and the kwei being specters by whom evil is wrought, 
the conclusion is that Chinese religion must be con- 
ceived as a system aiming at the propitiation of the 
aforesaid gods, in order to prevail upon them to prevent 
the devils from doing harm to man. (DeGroot, "The 
Religion of the Chinese," pp. 3-5, 33.) 

All this, as Professor DeGroot points out, is 
just primitive animism, the religion of all the 
primitive peoples, the African tribes, the natives 
of the East Indies, the aboriginal races of Bur- 
ma, such as the Karens, and of the Lao people; 
and it is the religion of the Koreans, on whom 
Buddhism laid but a slight and temporary hold, 
and whose type of national character resisted the 
formalizing influence of Confucianism. Herr 
Warneck has given a vivid and careful account of 
this phase of religion in his account of his ob- 
servations among the Battak people in Borneo, 
in "The Living Christ and Dying Heathenism." 
Dr. Nassau has described it out of an even longer 
experience among the tribes of Africa in "Fetich- 
ism in West Africa." And it has been generally 
treated in Brinton's "Religions of Primitive 
Peoples" and Trior's "Primitive Culture." 
"The theory of Animism," writes Tylor, "di- 
vides into two great dogmas: first, concerning 
souls of individual creatures, capable of contin- 
ued existence after the death or destruction of the 
body; second, concerning other spirits, upward 
to the rank of powerful deities." ("Primitive 
Culture," p. 426.) "Animism," says Herr War- 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 129 

neck, "is a form of paganism based on the wor- 
ship of souls. Men, animals and plants are sup- 
posed to have souls ; and their worship, as well 
as that of deceased spirits, especially ancestral 
spirits, is the essence of a religion which prob- 
ably is a factor in all heathen religions." (Re- 
port of Commission IV, World Missionary 
Conference, Ch. II.) 

"The belief in spiritual beings," says Dr. 
Nassau, "opens an immense vista of the purely 
superstitious side of the theology of Bantu Afri- 
can religion. All the air and the future is 
peopled with a large and indefinite company of 
these beings. The attitude of the Creator (An- 
yambe) toward the human race and the lower 
animals being that of indifference or of positive 
severity in having allowed evils to exist, and His 
indifference making Him almost inexorable, cause 
effort in the line of worship to be therefore 
directed only to those spirits who, though they 
are all probably malevolent, may be influenced 
and made benevolent. " (Nassau, "Fetichismin 
West Africa," p. 50.) 

This is the central element in all animistic Animism a 
religion. Men are afraid. Their great aim is Religion of 
to placate the evil spirits. All life is shadowed Fear - 
by this dread. Bishop Cameron of Cape Town 
says, "The religion of the heathen Kaffirs is 
entirely traditional and based on fear." "The 
Zulu," says Archdeacon Johnson, "has probably 
no conception of spiritual consolation. His 



130 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

actions are dictated by the desire to escape any- 
thing more unpleasant than that which has 
already befallen him. ' ' And Herr Warneck says, 
"Fear is characteristic of this religion. But this 
fear is real, and so are the efforts of the heathen 
to banish the spirits or to appease them by sacri- 
fices, even to deceive them if possible. About 
all this they are pathetically in earnest, for fear 
of unknown powers is the greatest reality, the 
leading motive of the heathen's religious life." 

"The animistic heathen," the same writer says 
in "The Living Christ and Dying Heathenism," 
"are not only in error; they are slaves. Fear 
in various forms tyrannizes over the animist in 
every situation of life. The vision of the world 
in which his religiousness is rooted is extremely 
dark. Even his own soul is a hostile power 
against which he must be ever on his guard. It 
is fond of leaving him; it allows itself to be 
enticed away from him. . . . The souls of 
relatives are easily wounded; and woe to him 
who even unintentionally offends them. Prim- 
itive man has to wind his way amid the throng of 
the souls of the people around him, and must 
continually bargain or fight with invisible and 
sinister powers. To that must be added fear of 
the dead, of demons, of the thousand spirits of 
earth, air, water, mountains and trees. The 
Battak is like a man driven in a frenzied pursuit 
round and round. Ghosts of the most diverse 
kinds lurk in house and village; in the field they 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 131 

endanger the produce of labor; in the forest they 
terrify the woodcutter; in the bush they hunt the 
wanderer. From them come diseases, madness, 
death of cattle, famine. Malicious demons sur- 
round women during pregnancy and at confine- 
ment; they lie in wait for the child from the day 
of its birth ; they swarm round the houses at 
night; they spy through the chinks of the walls 
for their helpless victims. The dead friend and 
brother becomes an enemy, and his coffin and 
grave are the abode of terror. It is fear that 
occasions the worship of the departed. Fear is 
the moving power of animistic religion, in Asia 
as in Africa." 

And it is not only fear that at once produces And of 
and is produced by animism. It breeds witch- Spiritual 
craft, sorcery, demonology, and in Africa it has Povert y- 
led to cannibalism and depopulation. And its 
whole ideal of religion, in spite of its apparent 
spiritualization of the universe, is earthly and 
sensuous. The worshiper is worshiping with no 
confession, no love, rarely any thanksgiving, be- 
ings whom he fears as capable of harming him 
in his material interests, and what he is seeking 
is not something religious, but some material 
good. As Dr. Nassau says: — 

The being to whom he appeals is not God. True, he 
does not deny that He is ; if asked, he will acknowl- 
edge His existence. But that is all. Very rarely, and 
only in extreme emergencies, does he make an appeal to 
Him; for he thinks God so far off, so inaccessible, so 
indifferent to human woes and wants, that a petition to 



132 THE LIGHT OP THE WORLD 

Him would be , almost in vain. He therefore turns 
to some one of the mass of spirits which he believes to 
be ever near and observant of human affairs, in which, 
as former human beings, some of them once had part. 

As to the character of the salvation sought, it is not 
spiritual ; it is a purely physical salvation. A sense of 
moral and spiritual need is lost sight of, although not 
eliminated. This is an index of the distance the negro 
has traveled away from Jehovah before he finally 
reached the position of placing his trust in a fetich. 
By just so much as he seems to himself living in a 
world crowded with unseen but powerful spiritual beings 
(with whom what a Christian calls "sin" has no repre- 
hensible moral quality), by just so much he seems to 
have lost sight of his own soul and its moral necessities. 

The future is so vague that in the thought of most 
tribes it contains neither heaven nor hell ; there is no 
certain reward or rest for goodness, nor positive pun- 
ishment for badness. The future life is to each native 
largely a reproduction, on shadowy and intangible lines, 
of the works and interests and passions of this earthly 
life. In his present life, with its savagery and oppres- 
sion and dominance of selfish greed and right of might, 
goodness has no reward. It is badness which in his 
personal experience makes the largest gains. From 
this point of view, while some acts are indeed called 
"good" and some "bad" (conscience proving its simple 
existence by the use of these words in the record of 
language), yet conscience is not much troubled by its 
possessor's badness. There is little sense of the sinful- 
ness of sin. There is only fear of possible human 
injury by human or subsidized spiritual enemies. This 
is all the salvation that is sought. (Nassau, "Fetichism 
in West Africa," p. 77 f.) 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 133 

It is to these animistic peoples that the gospel The Gospel i 
comes as a mighty revelation and deliverance. It Message of 
unifies the world to them with its doctrine of one Joy and 
God. It delivers them who were all their life- Freedom - 
time subject to bondage, by showing them that 
this God is both power and love. "The message 
of a living God," says Warneck, "in contrast to 
the animistic deities who live a self-centered life 
in heaven, strikes the heathen's heart. It is 
thought a sweet message that God does not live 
in unapproachable retirement, but is a loving and 
acting One, dealing with men, blessing or pun- 
ishing them. His omnipotence proved through- 
out in face of human distress and demoniac 
power wins the heathen's heart, and invites him 
to try this great and good God's help. Soon he 
will try to come in contact with God through 
prayer, and then rejoices, childlike, when he 
finds himself heard. Such experience overthrows 
superstition and fear. This immediate, natural 
relation to the almighty, personal God, is one 
of the loveliest experiences observed in animistic 
heathen, and is not uncommon." (Report of 
Commission IV, World Missionary Conference, 
Ch. II.) 

No peoples of the world make a stronger 
appeal to the heart of the Christian Church to- 
day than the animistic people. And no people 
are readier to respond to the gospel. Without 
God and without hope in the world, at the mercy 
of evil spirits and of their own sorcerers, dwelling 



134 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

among a thousand terrors, the arrows of demons, 
shot at night, and the pestilence of unseen foes 
that creeps at noonday, poor and made poorer by 
the ruinous exactions of their superstitions, — 
these are those in bondage whom the gospel 
would set free ; these are the eyes that are blinded, 
which the gospel would open to the Light that 
would be the Light of all the World. 

It is this animism which ruled the popular 
mind of China before Confucius arose, which in 
Chinese form rules it now in spite of Confucius, 
and which completely transformed the original 
philosophy of Lao-tsze until his system became a 
great mass of polydemonistic, polytheistic super- 
stition. 
Primitive But there was also in the ancient Chinese reli- 

Monothcism gion, and there is in Chinese religion to-day, a 
in China. f ar no bler element. A multitude of spirits 

roamed about the world, evil spirits causing all 
evil. Natural objects were inhabited by spirits 
and worshiped. There were sacrifices and exor- 
cisms and oracles. But over all this there were 
gods, and over all gods was the superior power 
called Heaven, the Supreme Ruler, Shang-ti, or 
God. The spirits of cloud and rain and wind 
were ministers assisting Shang-ti. In the prayers 
found in the "Statutes of the Ming Dynasty" 
(1368-1642 B. C.) we read: "It is yours, O 
spirits, with your Heaven-conferred powers, and 
nurturing influences, each to preside as guardian 
over one district, as ministers assisting the great 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 135 

Worker and Transformer, and thus the people 
enjoy your meritorious services." Legge con- 
tends that the early religion was a true primitive 
monotheism, "that there had grown up round it 
an inferior worship of multitudinous spirits; that 
this inferior worship was not a nature worship, 
and that it was subordinate to the homage due to 
God." It is impossible now to determine how 
strong the popular animism was, and how pure 
the primitive monotheism. When looking back 
we first find any standing ground in the history, 
we perceive that the worship of Heaven, of the 
superior ruler, was the annual function of the 
sovereign of China, acting for himself and as the 
representative of his people, that the worship of 
the spirits of ancestors was a part of the state 
ceremonial, but that in this the whole people 
shared, reverencing their forefathers as among 
the immortal spiritual beings, and that while the 
idea of a supreme controlling Providence was in 
the background of the people's mind, their prac- 
tical daily religion was a worship of spirits, and 
a propitiation of demons and of spiritualized 
natural forces. 

This was the religious mind of China when Confucius. 
Confucius came. The simple facts of the great 
teacher's life can be briefly told. He was born in 
551 B. C. in what is now the Province of Shan- 
tung. In Chinese his name is not Confucius, but 
Kung-foo-tsze. His family traced its lineage 
back to the twenty-eighth century B. C. to the 



136 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

mythical Hwang Ti. His father was an able and 
prominent officer, over seventy years of age when 
his son was born. He died when his son was 
three years old, and his mother brought him up 
in a hard struggle with poverty, a school whose 
lessons he learned thoroughly. "When I was 
young, " he said later when people were surprised 
at the many things he could do, "my condition 
was low, and I acquired my ability in many 
things." His favorite boyhood play was in 
arranging sacrificial vessels and in ceremonial 
posturing, lie was married at the age of nine- 
teen, and his only son, Li, was born the next 
year. We find him now in charge of some 
public stoics of grain, and two years later he 
begins teaching, not boys, but young men who 
wished to know the history and doctrines of the 
great past which shone before Confucius as the 
Golden Age. For ten years or more he continued 
this teaching, pursuing, also, his own researches 
into antiquity, and studying music, of which he 
was fond, and to which he assigned an important 
place in the education of individuals and the 
order and improvement of the State. By this 
time men began to realize that a great mind had 
come among them, and in 517 B. C. one of the 
chief ministers of the State of Lu, where he 
lived, ordered his son to be placed in Confucius' 
school. He now visited the capital of the king- 
dom, and his fame was greatly increased. Re- 
turning to his own state, great disorder broke out, 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 137 

and it was some sixteen years before tranquility 
was restored and he became magistrate of Chung- 
tn. After a wonderful success there in reforming 
the manners of the people, by methods which 
attracted the attention of the government, he was 
made Minister of Works and of Crime, and soon 
reformed the whole state. We are told, "He 
strengthened the ruling house, and weakened the 
ministers and chiefs. A transforming govern- 
ment went abroad. Dishonesty and dissoluteness 
were ashamed, and hid their heads. Loyalty and 
good faith became the characteristics of the men, 
and chastity and docility those of the women. 
Strangers came in crowds from other states." 
He became the ideal of the people. But the 
prosperity of Lu aroused the envy of other states, 
and one of them broke down the influence of 
Confucius by sending a present of beautiful 
women and fine horses to the Prince of Lu, who 
turned from the cold virtue of the Sage to these 
warm pleasures. Confucius and his doctrines 
were neglected, and unwillingly and hoping for 
recall he went away. 

For thirteen years Confucius and his disciples 
wandered from state to state looking for a ruler 
who would appreciate and accept the counsels of 
the philosopher, but in vain. He bore his dis- 
appointments — all the keener because they contra- 
dicted his philosophy — with patience and noble 
faith in the ultimate triumph of truth. When 
his disciples were alarmed at the attack of a mob 
upon them, he calmly said, "After the death of 



138 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

King Wan, was not the cause of letters and truth 
lodged in me? If heaven had wished to let this 
cause perish, I should not have got such a rela- 
tion to it. While heaven does not let the cause 
of truth perish, what can the men of K'wang do 
to me?" In the same way, on another occasion, 
when they were attacked by a band employed by 
a malicious officer called Hvvan T'ui, Confucius 
observed, '"Heaven has produced the virtue that 
is in me; what can Hwan T'ui do to me?" 

When one of his disciples hesitated to describe 
his master to a ruler who had asked about him, 
Confucius said, "Why did you not say that I am 
simply a man who in his eager pursuit of knowl- 
edge forgets his food, who in the joy of its attain- 
ment forgets his sorrows, and who does not 
perceive that old age is coming on?" 

After main hardships and bitter experiences, 
Confucius returned in 483 B. C. to Lu for the 
last five years of his life. lie was treated respect- 
fully, but held no public office. lie gave himself 
to completing his literary work, and then in 478 
B. C. at the age of seventy-two he passed away. 

''The great mountain must crumble; 
The strong beam must break; 
And the wise man wither away like a plant," 

were the oft quoted words which he said to him- 
self the morning his last illness began. "No 
intelligent monarch arises," he added to a dis- 
ciple. "There is no prince in the kingdom who 
will make me his master. My time has come to 
die." 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 139 

Confucius was a true sage, though he dis- Character of 
claimed any such title. He was confident that Confucius, 
his philosophy was adequate to meet the needs of 
society, but to him it was not his own philosophy 
but only the accumulated wisdom of the past, the 
principles of the golden age. "A transmitter 
and not a maker, believing in and loving the 
ancients, I venture to compare myself with our 
old P'ang, " was his description of himself. No- 
where did he depart from the language here used, 
and he resisted every temptation to usurp honors 
which did not belong to him. Though more 
deeply versed in the literature of his country than 
any of his contemporaries, he yet professed him- 
self deficient in knowledge, though deeply 
enamoured of learning. Though looked upon 
by his fellow men as a sage, he disclaimed the 
possession of the qualities of even a "superior 
man." "I am not virtuous enough," he said, 
"to be free from anxieties; not wise enough to 
be free from perplexities; and not bold enough 
to be free from fear." (Douglas, "Confucian- 
ism and Taoism," p. 147.) 

He was a poor man, whose hands were clean 
of all corruption, upright in all personal and 
public relations, a seeker for truth and a believer 
in the absolute power of the truth. He does not 
seem to have been happy in his home relations, 
and the general stiffness and propriety of his 
demeanor, — the flower of that ceremonial posturing 
which he had loved as a boy, — are well illustrated 



140 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

in the story of his attitude toward his son Li. 
An inquisitive disciple once asked the boy, 
"Have you heard any lessons from your father 
different from what we have all heard?" "No," 
replied Li; "he was standing alone once when I 
was passing through the court below with hasty 
steps and said to me, 'Have you read the Odes?' 
On my replying, 'Not yet,' he added, 'If you do 
not learn the Odes, you will not be fit to converse 
with.' Another day, in the same place and the 
same way, he said to nw, 'Have you read the 
rules of Propriety?' On my replying, 'Not yet,' 
he added, 'If you do not learn the rules of 
Propriety, your character cannot be established.' 
'I asked onething,' said the enthusiastic disciple, 
'and I have learned three things. I have learnt 
about the Odes; I have learnt about the rules of 
Propriety; and I have learnt that the superior 
man maintains a distant reserve towards his 
son. ' " 

Confucius himself realized the moral impotence 
of his philosophy in the regeneration of character, 
and even in the normal development of the 
superior man. "In letters," he said, "I am 
perhaps equal to other men; but the character of 
the superior man, carrying out in his conduct 
what he professes, is what I have not yet attained 
to. The leaving virtue without proper cultiva- 
tion; the not thoroughly discussing what is 
learned; not being able to move towards right- 
eousness of which a knowledge is gained; and 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 141 

not being able to change what is not good; — these 
are the things which occasion me solicitude." 
There was no glow of piety in the man. 
(Legge, "Christianity and Confucianism Com- 
pared," p. 22.) He evaded all religious enquiry. 
He discouraged prayer. "My prayers, " said he, 
"were offered up long ago." "What he means," 
says Pung Kwang Yu, "is that he considers his 
prayers to consist in living a virtuous life and in 
constantly obeying the dictates of conscience." 
Again said Confucius, "He who sins against 
Heaven has no place to pray." He was not a 
poet, nor a philosopher in any creative or com- 
prehensive sense. He was a student of tradition 
and, as he conceived it, a practical politician. 
He believed in the essential goodness and order- 
liness of human nature; that men are as naturally 
good as water is inclined to run down hill; that 
all they need is example and instruction, and that 
a right political philosophy embodied in a ruler 
would reform and perfect society. In spite of the 
optimism which sprang from such an inadequate 
philosophy, — a philosophy so inconsistent with 
the facts of life, — Confucius toward the end began 
to lose heart. His whole experience belied his 
fundamental principles. He felt the disappoint- 
ment of it keenly. "My principles make no 
progress," said he, "and I, — how shall I be 
viewed in future ages?" 

Future ages answered that question in a way of His Influence, 
which Confucius never dreamed. "Never," says 



142 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

M. Hue, in an exaggeration which has truth in 
it, "never has it been given to any mortal to 
exercise during so many centuries so extensive 
an empire over his fellow creatures." "It is 
perhaps not too much to say of him," wrote so 
conservative a missionary as Dr. Nevius, "that 
the system of ethics and morality which he 
taught is the purest which has ever originated in 
the history of the world independent of the divine 
revelation in the Bible, and that he has exerted a 
greater influence for good upon our race than any 
other uninspired sage of antiquity." (Nevius, 
"China and the Chinese," p. 54.) And most 
significantly, in the case of Confucius as in the 
case of Buddha, both of them teachers who 
deprecated superstition, and who taught men that 
they were sufficient to themselves with no super- 
natural aid, the religious heart of man responded 
by making the teacher himself an object of 
worship. His example and his books became the 
determinant factors in Chinese education, and "in 
the year 1 A. D. there began the practice of con- 
ferring, by imperial authority, honorary titles on 
Confucius, and in the year 57 it was enacted that 
sacrifices should be offered to him in the govern- 
ment colleges throughout the country. At the 
present day he is worshiped twice a year on 
certain days in the middle months of spring and 
autumn. Then the emperor goes in state to the 
imperial college in Peking, and performs his 
homage, and presents the appointed offerings, 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 143 

before the spirit tablets of Confucius and four of 
his most famous disciples. These are the words 
of the principal prayer on the occasion : "On this 
month of this year, I, the emperor, offer sacrifice 
to the philosopher K'ung, the ancient Teacher, 
the perfect Sage, and say, O Teacher, in virtue 
equal to heaven and earth, whose doctrines 
embrace the time past and the present, thou didst 
digest and transmit the six Classics, and didst 
hand down lessons for all generations! Now in 
this second month of spring (or autumn) in 
-reverent observance of the old statutes, with 
victims, silks, spirits, and fruits, I offer sacrifice 
to thee." (Legge, "The Religions of China," 
p. 148.) Thus the religious spirit of the Chinese 
people took its strange revenge on the great secu- 
laristic philosopher, and comprehended him in 
its vast embrace, reaching from the crudest 
fetichism through spirit, sage and god to high 
heaven and the Supreme Ruler of all. 

And yet it is not quite adequate to call Confu- ^ g j$ e n e f { n 
cius a secularistic philosopher. He believed in Heaven. 
Providence, and drew the sanctions of heaven 
over his entire political philosophy. But his 
whole conception had to do with a human govern- 
mental organization. 

His "idea of the Chinese Empire, his 'All 
under heaven,' was a visible heaven on earth, 
the emperor, the only son of heaven, holding, as 
such, power and dominion over all the earth as 
his indisputable right. His imperial laws were 



144 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

heavenly laws, like the laws of nature inalterable; 
every transgression causing evil consequences, 
even in nature. A return into the right path 
restores the perturbed harmony. The foreign 
treaties, forcing on China the acknowledgment of 
other independent states as equal if not superior 
to China, crushes this fundamental doctrine of 
Confucianism. 

'"Ancient religion was simply continued, but 
made snl >ordinatc to the government of the state. 
The emperor as son of heaven is subject only to 
heaven; all gods and spirits are subject to him, 
are rewarded and punished, promoted or degraded 
by the emperor and his mandarins in accordance 
with their rank. This peculiarity has become 
very prominent in Modern Confucianism. 

'"As the Chinese Empire is regarded as a 
visible heavenly kingdom on earth, so the invisi- 
ble world corresponds exactly to every Chinese 
institution, even in its smallest details. There is 
one highest ruler in heaven corresponding to the 
emperor on earth; under Him are innumerable 
gods of all degrees, rulers of states or large 
provinces down to invisible constables and kitchen 
gods. (Modern Confucianism went consistently 
into the extreme, that the deceased have the same 
needs in the other world as on earth, which needs 
have to be supplied by their descendants. There 
are also the same punishments; the torments in 
hell are counterfeits of the tortures in Chinese 
courts of law, in prisons and on the execution 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 145 

ground. The gods are just as accessible to 
bribes as the mandarins on earth.) Confucius 
preferred to speak of heaven instead of God and 
gods, probably in order to avoid confusion with 
such beings called gods at the time, but he 
allowed error to have its own way." (Faber, 
"Confucianism," p. 7.) 

All this was due to Confucius' principle of 
simply sanctifying and transmitting the sacred 
past. Into the Classics, which are the real sacred 
books of China, were gathered up all the prin- 
ciples of this past, whatsoever they were, in 
politics and in religion, both the animism and 
the monotheism; and the practice of the Classics 
has been the politics and religion of China. And 
yet this statement needs to be supplemented to 
gain a just view of Confucius and of the modern 
Chinese religion. On the« one hand, Confucius 
did not support, more than was unavoidable in 
his view, the popular animism; and, on the 
other, he added nothing to the spiritual legacy of 
ancient Chinese monotheism, and it is question- 
able whether he transmitted all of it. Dr. Legge 
says he knows of only one case in which Con- 
fucius used the personal name of God, except 
when he was quoting from the older books. His 
practice was to avoid any such reference, and in- 
stead to use the indefinite and merely providential 
term of heaven. But the caution of Confucius in 
moderating all supernaturalism has been offset by 
the racial superstition of the Chinese people, 



146 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

which has poured into the actual religion of 
China to-day a great volume of animistic view 
and practice, which, even if it can be separated 
from Confucianism, nevertheless affects the life 
and opinions of every Confucianist. And it is 
indeed entirely iair to say that these religious 
elements, these distinctly animistic elements, are 
a part of modern Confucianism. The Hon. Pung 
Kwang Yu so represents Confucianism: — 

The Confucianists take the meaning of the word 
"ti," dispenser of heaven, in their interpretation of the 
notes of Confucius to the Book of Changes. "Ti," 
therefore, is synonymous with heaven, and there is only 
one such. The heaven and earth constitute a dualism. 
The conjunction of their vital essences brings forth a 
third, the inscrutable part of which is called a spirit. 
The heaven unites its essences with the essences of the 
sun, moon or stars, and the resulting products of 
spiritual force and energy are called respectively the 
spirit of the sun, moon and stars. These are the spirits 
of heaven. When heaven unites its essences with the 
essences of the earth's elevations and depressions, the 
resulting products of spiritual force and energy are 
called the spirits of mountains, rivers, lakes and seas. 
These are the spirits of the earth. The spirits of the 
heaven and the earth cannot be represented by human 
likenesses, or by natural objects, nor can they be called 
by proper names or clothed with the vesture of mortals. 
How much more is this true of the Lord of lords! 

The spiritual essence of man produced by the union 
of celestial and terrestrial forces, is the soul which par- 
takes of a twofold nature, the celestial element bein'^ 
"wen" and the terrestrial element being "pah." The 
separation of these two elements gives rise to the exist- 
ence of ghosts. 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 147 

There are, then, celestial spirits, terrestrial spirits, 
and human spirits. If any of these spirits, by some 
exercise of power, or by some supernatural action, 
benefits the creation in some way, thus emulating the 
goodness of heaven to some extent, then it is the part 
of the national government to take cognizance of such 
action by raising the beneficent spirit to the rank of 
"ti," and enrolling his name in the catalogue of canon- 
ized spirits. It is not to be inferred from such acts of 
the national government that spirits are "tis" or rulers 
of heaven. What is really meant by this is that benefi- 
cent spirits, by showing their goodness to the animated 
creation in general and to mankind in particular, are 
worthy to take their places by the side of heaven and 
earth as the benefactors of mankind. It will be seen 
that the ideas of God and spirits, as derived from revela- 
tion, are so different from the conceptions of God and 
spirits which the Confucianists have, that what is taught 
by the one cannot but be different from what is taught 
by the other. (Report of Parliament of Religions, 
Vol. I, p. 378.) 

If we eliminate, however, those elements which State 
lead us into regions where Confucius declined to Worship and 
go, and consider only the religious elements in Fllial Pie ty- 
Confucianism which were given high place by 
the Sage himself, we shall find that they are two, 
the State worship and ancestor worship. (Gib- 
son, "Mission Problems and Mission Methods in 
South China," p. 88 f. ) The former is the 
annual representative worship by the emperor, 
in Peking, at the time of the summer solstice, 
when, as the Son of Heaven, he offers prayers 
for his people. The latter is the very warp of 
Chinese religion, over which all other ideas are 



148 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

thrown as woof. It existed before Confucius, 
and was approved and sanctified by him. It has 
produced a family solidarity found nowhere else 
in the world. It has led to the legalization of 
concubinage as essential at times to the securing 
of sons to maintain the family line and the unend- 
ing worship which is indispensable to the dead 
and the living. It has done more than any other 
single influence, except the memorizing of the 
Classics as the sole learning, to fossilize Chinese 
life, and to bind the future in the shackles of the 
past. It is the religious expression of a filial 
piety which has many noble features, and the 
I of which must not be lost when the idola- 
trous elements are rendered no longer possible, as 
they will be by the acceptance of true notions of 
the human soul and of the natural world and of 
the spiritual universe. No people in the world 
should sympathize more than Christians with the 
Chinese in their devotion to their ancestors and 
in their exaltation of filial piety into the greatest 
of virtues. A true and complete loyalty to the 
great Father God goes best with true loyalty to 
the earthly fatherhoods, which are named after 
the heavenly. And Chinese filial piety, when 
once its pagan elements are dissolved, is a noble 
base on which to build a Christian Society. 
Confucianism And it was in society, not in religion, that 
Primarily Confucius' interest lay. He was an ancient 

Political. sociologist. He viewed man and ethics always 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 149 

in relation to politics. Dr. Faber sets this forth in 
some propositions embodying his central doc- 
trine: — 

Man is considered not from a religious, not from a 
mystical, nor again from a materialistic, but from a 
humane-moral point of view; i, e., man as man in rela- 
tion to men. 

It contains nothing on the origin of man. He 
appears as a blossom of nature and in highest perfection 
as an associate of Heaven and Earth. 

The ideal and the powers for carrying it out lie only 
in man himself. The holy man is the representative of 
the ideal man by nature, and the superior man of the 
ideal man by moral perfection. 

Sin is the excess in human desires and endeavors ; by 
reverting into the right- path it ceases. 

Man is free; destiny only presents bounds which it 
is useless, even injurious, to break. 

All virtues are directly connected with humanity, as 
virtue par excellence. 

All public virtue presupposes private virtue. The 
latter must therefore be the chief aim of the superior 
man. But not as hermit, but as child, brother, friend 
and subject. 

The steps on the way to perfection are : perfect 
knowledge, a true mind, right sentiment of the heart, 
culture of the whole person ; furthermore, an influence 
over family, state and things generally. 

The task of the state is the physical charge and the 
moral education of the people ; the highest glory is 
peace, not war and anarchy. (Faber, "Systematical 
Digest of the Doctrines of Confucius," pp. 128-131.) 

Christianity casts every one of these ideas in a 
different form, in a truer form as regards sin, and 
in each case in a form which recognizes the 
spiritual principles in man and in society, and 



150 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

which relates all human action and organization 
to God and the Kingdom of God. All this was 
as much outside of the world of Confucius as a 
world of three dimensions is outside of a world 
of two. 
The The political doctrine of Confucius is set forth 

Classics. j n t ne Classics, as the nine great books of Con- 

fucianism are called. These nine are The Five 
King and The Four Shoo. The Five King 
are The Book of Changes, The Book of 
Historical Documents, The Book of Poetry, 
The Record of Kites, and Spring and Autumn, 
which is a chronicle of events extending from 
B. C. 721 to B. C. 480. These five books are 
looselv attributed to Confucius, but only the last 
of them can be described as of his making. The 
Four Shoo are the Confucian Analects, a record 
of the savings of Confucius, The Great Learn- 
ing, now attributed to one of his disciples, The 
Doctrine of the Mean, ascribed to his grandson, 
and the fourth contains the works of Mencius. 
A few quotations from the Classics will suffice 
to show, though very inadequately, their general 
tone and character: — 

In the way of the superior man, there are four things 
to not one of which have I as yet attained : To serve my 
father as I would require my son to serve me; to serve 
my elder brother as I would require my younger brother 
to serve me; to behave to a friend as I would require 
him to behave to me. Earnest in practicing the ordi- 
narv virtues, and careful in speaking about them ; if, in 
his conduct, he has anything defective, the superior man 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 151 

dares not but exert himself; and if, in his words, he 
has any excess, he dares not allow himself such license. 
Thus his words have respect to his actions, and his 
actions have respect to his words ; is it not complete 
sincerity which makes the superior man? 

The superior man does not wait till he sees things to 
be cautious, nor till he hears things to be apprehensive. 
There is nothing more visible than what is secret, and 
nothing more manifest than what is minute. There- 
fore, the superior man is watchful over himself when 
he is alone. 

He who possesses sincerity — absolutely, that is — is he 
who without effort hits what is right, and apprehends 
without the exercise of thought: he is the sage who 
naturally and easily embodies the right way. He who 
attains to sincerity is he who chooses what is good, and 
firmly holds it fast. And to this attainment there are 
requisite the extensive study of what is good, accurate 
enquiry about it, careful reflection on it, the clear dis- 
crimination of it, and the earnest practice of it. 

The ancients . . . wishing to be sincere in their 
thoughts, first extended to the utmost their knowledge. 
Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of 
things. Things being investigated, knowledge became 
complete. Their knowledge being complete, their 
thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, 
their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being 
rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons 
being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their 
families being regulated, their states were rightly 
governed. Their states being rightly governed, the 
whole empire was made tranquil and happy. 

It is not possible for a man to teach others who can- 
not teach his own family. Therefore a ruler, without 
going beyond his family, completes the lessons for the 
State. There is filial piety; therewith the sovereign 



152 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

should be served. There is fraternal submission, with 
which the elders and superiors should be served. There 
is kindness, with which the multitude should be 
treated. . . . From the loving example of one family 
the whole state becomes loving; and from its courte- 
sies, the whole state becomes courteous; while, from 
the ambition and perverseness of one man, the whole 
state may be led to rebellious disorder — such is the 
nature of influence. 

With the right men, the growth of government is 
rapid, just as vegetation is rapid in the earth; and 
indeed their government might be called an easily grow- 
ing rush. Therefore the administration of government 
lies in getting proper men. Such men are to be got by 
means of the ruler's own character. That character is 
to be cultivated by his treading in the ways of duty. 
And the teaching those ways of duty is to he cultivated 
DV the cherishing of benevolence. 

What is meant by "the making the whole empire 
peaceful and happy depends on the government of the 
state, 1 " is this; when the sovereign behaves to his aged 
as the aged should he behaved to, the people become 
filial ; when the sovereign behaves to his elders as 
elders should be behaved to, the people learn brotherly 
submission; when the sovereign treats compassionately 
the young and helpless, the people do the same. 

Such are the ideas which have molded the 
education of China. For centuries the Chinese 
people have saturated their minds in the Classics. 
In the results we have a unique illustration of 
what can be accomplished by fashioning an 
isolated nation for ages by government education 
in a single, unvarying set of text-books. Con- 
fucius came to his unique place in China's 
thought because he embodied the essential Chi- 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 153 

nese character. He originated nothing. He 
simply expressed the genius of the race. But 
in giving China this embodiment and expression 
in his character and his writings, he supplied the 
agency by which the racial character was intensi- 
fied and its genius fixed irrevocably. A perma- 
nent national identity has been produced, which 
some day the gospel is to redeem and to put to 
world uses of which Confucius could not have 
conceived. 

The last of the Confucian Classics is the Mencius. 
volume containing the writings of Mencius, 
whose name as a teacher is reverenced in China 
next to that of Confucius himself. Mencius is 
the Latinized form of Mang-tsze, "The philoso- 
pher Mang. " He was born B. C. 371 and died 
B. C. 288, at the age of eighty-three. He was a 
contemporary of Aristotle and Demosthenes, 
neither of whom has wielded a greater influence 
over posterity. As with Confucius, his father 
died when he was young, and he was brought up 
by a wonderful mother. (Legge, "The Life and 
Works of Mencius," pp. 16-18.) He was an 
admirer and student of Confucius. "Although I 
could not be a disciple of Confucius myself," he 
said, "I have endeavored to cultivate my virtue 
by means of others who were." His lot fell on 
troublesome times, and he had to meet strange 
new doctrines, among them those of Shin-meng, 
an ancient Tolstoi or Ruskin, who deprecated 
division of labor and would have the sovereign 



154 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

grow his own rice and cook his own meals. 
Mencius loyally applied the doctrine of Confucius 
to the new days. Rulers consulted him and 
sometimes accepted, sometimes rejected, his coun- 
sel. For the most part his lot was like his great 
predecessor's, and for the last twenty years of his 
life he disappeared from courts, and in retirement 
taught the disciples who gathered to him, and 
compiled the works which have lived and molded 
China to this day. When the philosopher Ching 
was asked whether Mencius might be pronounced 
to be a sage, he replied, ''I do not dare to say 
altogether that he was a sage, but his learning 
had reached the extrcmest point." The same 
great philosopher also said, "The merit of 
Mencius in regard to the doctrine of the sages is 
more than can be told. Confucius only spoke of 
benevolence, but as soon as Mencius opens his 
mouth we hear of benevolence and righteousness. 
Confucius only spoke of the will or mind, but 
Mencius enlarged also on the nourishment of the 
passion-nature. In these two respects his merit 
was great. " "Mencius did great service to the 
world by his teaching the goodness of man's 
nature." 

The Scholar Yang Kwei-shan says: "The 
great object of Mencius in his writings is to 
rectify men's hearts, teaching them to preserve 
their heart and nourish their nature, and to 
recover their lost heart. When he discourses of 
benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and knowl- 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 155 

edge, he refers to the principles of these in the 
heart commiserating, feeling shame and dislike, 
affected with modesty and complaisance, approv- 
ing and disapproving. When he speaks of the 
evils springing from perverted speakings, he 
says, ' Growing firs*t in the mind, they prove in- 
jurious to government. ' When he shows how a 
prince should be served, he says, 'Correct what 
is wrong in his mind. Once rectify the prince, 
and the kingdom will be settled .' With him the 
thousand changes and ten thousand operations of 
men all come from the mind or heart. If a man 
once rectify his heart, little else will remain for 
him to do.'' (Legge, "The Life and Works 
of Mencius, " p. 41 f. ) 

Of Mencius' character, Dr. Legge says: "While 
we are not to look to Mencius for new truths, the 
peculiarities of his natural character were more 
striking than those of his master. There was an 
element of 'the heroicar about him. He was a 
dialectician, moreover. If he did not like dis- 
puting, as he protested that he did not, yet, when 
forced to it, he showed himself a master of the 
art. An ingenuity and subtlety which we cannot 
but enjoy often mark his reasons. We have more 
sympathy with him than with Confucius. He 
comes closer to us. He is not so awe-ful, but he 
is more admirable. The doctrines of the sages 
take a tinge from his mind in passing through it, 
and it is with that Mencian character about them 
that they are now held by the cultivated classes and 



156 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

by readers generally." (Legge, "The Life and 
Works of Mencius," p. 43.) 

Mencius held the same general ethical and 
religious view as Confucius. "The five regular 
constituents of our moral nature" are the prin- 
ciples, attributes and faculties of benevolence, 
righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and sincerity. 
The duties of the human lot in the five relations, 
as stated by Mencius, are "between father and 
son, affection; between ruler and subject, right- 
eousness; between husband and wife, attention to 
their separate functions; between elders and 
youngers, a proper distinction; and between 
friends, fidelity." (Legge, "Christianity and 
Confucianism Compared," p. 11.) 

lie had the same placid, superficial, daily 
contradicted optimism as to human nature. 
"The tendency of man's nature to good is like 
the tendency of water to flow downwards. There 
are none but have this tendency to good, just as 
all water flows downwards. By striking water 
and causing it to leap up, you may make it go 
over your forehead, and, by damming and leading 
it, you may force it up a hill ; but are such move- 
ments according to the nature of water? It is 
the force applied which causes them. When men 
are made to do w r hat is not good, their nature is 
dealt with in this way." (Legge, "The Life and 
Works of Mencius," p. 58.) 

And yet of nature as God meant it to be, as it 
is in His ideal, this is the true view, and Mencius 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 157 

was asserting a great Christian truth when he put 
his view in such an ideal form. "From the feel- 
ings proper to it," said he, (( we see that it is 
constituted for the practice of what is good. 
This is what I mean in saying that the nature is 
good. If men do what is not good, the blame 
cannot be imputed to their natural powers." 

His doctrine of human nature as formed for 
virtue is a noble doctrine. The inadequacy of 
his view lies in the fact that he does not realize 
that the ideal has been defaced and that it cannot 
restore itself. He is like Confucius in knowing 
nothing of sin as the victorious foe of ideal 
human nature, or of a way in which men may 
recover in God the nature which they have lost 
and be made secure in it by a supernatural life. 

The third great religious teacher of China was Lao-tsze. 
the philosopher Lao-tsze. The name is probably 
a title of respect meaning "the old or venerable 
philosopher." He was born in what is now the 
Province of Honan, in B. C. 604, and tradition 
says he was eighty years old and an old man with 
white hair when he was born. In 517 B. C. it 
is said that Confucius came to see him, the older 
teacher's fame having spread far, and the inter- 
view was not harmonious. "Those whom you 
talk about," said Lao-tsze, "are dead, and their 
bones are moldered to dust; only their words are 
left. Moreover, when the superior man gets his 
time he mounts aloft; but, when the time is 
against him, he moves as if his feet were 



158 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

entangled. I have heard that a good merchant, 
although he has rich treasures deeply stored, 
appears as if he were poor, and that the superior 
man, though his virtue is complete, is yet to out- 
ward seeming stupid. Put away your proud air 
and many desires, your insinuating habit and 
wild will. These are of no advantage to you. 
This is all that I have to tell you." After the 
interview, we are told, Confucius said to his dis- 
ciples, "I know how birds can fly, fishes swim, 
and animals run. But the runner maybe snared, 
the swimmer hooked, and the flyer shot by the 
arrow. But there is the dragon: I cannot tell 
how he mounts on the wind through the clouds 
and rises to heaven. To-day I have seen Lao- 
tsze, and can only compare him to the dragon." 
Lao-tsze was interested in metaphysics. His 
mind passed behind the ceremonial ideas and 
political traditions of Confucius. lie wanted to 
find the ultimate base of things. The transitory 
issues of the day were of little interest to him. 
He withdrew from them to seek the inner secret 
of life. "The world is joyful and merry as on 
a day of sacrifice," he said; "I alone prefer soli- 
tude and quiet and prefer not to pry into futurity. 
I am like an infant ere it has grown to be a 
child; listless I roam hither and thither, as 
though I had no home to go to. Confused and 
dim, while the vulgar are enlightened, I alone 
am in the dark, tossed to and fro like the sea, 
roaming without cessation." Before he retired 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 159 

wholly from the world, he wrote a book for one 
who asked him before he went to leave behind 
what he had found, and this book we have still 
in the Tao Teh King. After writing it, Lao-tsze 
passed out from the kingdom alone and unattended 
and was seen no more. 

His book is a "Treatise on the Absolute and The Tao Tek 
the Actual." His doctrine is that we must King, 
empty ourselves and be free from preoccupation 
if we would be ready to receive; that emptiness 
is necessary to usefulness, that this emptiness is 
freedom from selfish motives; that we must be 
humble to learn; that the highest good is like 
water, supple, soft, silent, always seeking the 
low place, and yet the most serviceable and strong 
of all things; that the three precious things are 
compassion, economy and want of presumption; 
that good must be returned for evil, and violence 
be laid aside. So far the doctrine is unexcep- 
tionable, but further, with the progress of knowl- 
edge and life, Lao-tsze had no sympathy, and 
his doctrine would have dissolved society into 
units, each seeking by retirement an escape from 
the confusion of things. Professor Douglas 
holds, also, that Lao-tsze knew nothing of a 
personal God, so far as we may judge from his 
treatise, "and," he adds, "a belief in such a 
being would be in opposition to the whole tenor 
of his philosophy." ("Confucianism and Tao- 
ism," p. 211.) Professor Legge is less certain, 
but says, "While the existence of God is not 



160 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

denied, there is no inculcation of religion in the 
book. Lao-tsze's Taoism is the exhibition of a 
way or method of living which men should cul- 
tivate as the highest and purest development of 
their nature." (Legge, "The Religions of 
China," p. 229.) 
Taoist But in the case of Lao-tsze, once again, the 

Superstition, religious instinct, thwarted and wiled, twists 
upon itself in abortive forms and takes revenge 
upon those who have disappointed it. Lao-tsze 
is now a god. Taoism, the religion which takes 
its name from the title of his book, has made 
him one of the Taoist triad, the "Three Pure 
Ones," who sit together in serene stillness in ten 
thousand temples and look down upon scenes 
which Lao-tsze despised. And now worked 
upon by Buddhism and gathering up into itself 
the indigenous animism of the land, Taoism has 
become a mass of superstitions, idolatry, demon- 
\ olatrv and geomancy, which the best thought of 
China regards With contempt, however super- 
stitious that best thought may itself still be. But 
Lao-tsze's system had in it the germs of this 
development. The Tao Teh King begins: — 

The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and 
unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not 
the enduring and unchanging name. As having no 
name it is the originator of heaven and earth; as having 
a name, it is the mother of all things. . . . Under these 
two aspects it is really the same; but as development 
takes place, it receives different names. Together we 
call them the Mystery. Where the mystery is the 
deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful. 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 161 

It was here that Taoism stood out in strongest 
contrast with Confucianism. Confucianism knew 
nothing of mystery. Lao-tsze had a deeper and 
more courageous insight. He knew that where 
our commonplace explanations end, there is the 
gateway of new and widening truth. "In the 
recognition of this lesson," says Dr. Gibson, 
"lies at once the strength and the weakness of 
Taoism. In its strength it has given us the 
Taoist metaphysic, which for freshness, depth, 
and thorough-going idealism, has no Confucian 
rival ; in its weakness it has produced the imbecile 
vagaries of Taoist alchemy, geomancy, and gen- 
eral hocus-pocus." (Gibson, "Mission Problems 
and Mission Methods," p. 94.) 

Into this network of gods and immortal sages, 
of city gods and star gods; of a deified magician 
known as the Jade Emperor, superintending 
the world and an imaginary earthly heaven in the 
Kun Lun Mountains; of elixir of life and charms 
and exorcisms; of its pitiful Pope; of literalistic 
hells, pictured in the most lurid detail in the 
temples; of merit accounts in which acts are 
appraised with exactest precision, and salvation 
is mathematically calculated, — into all this, so 
terrible in its weight upon a nation's life, and 
yet so destitute of ideas and of spiritual meaning, 
we need not enter. It is fully described in the 
books on China, and on the religious practices 
of the Chinese people. It is enough for us to 
note that there is the same need for true religion 



162 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

to lighten the mind of China and to satisfy its 
soul that there is among all the animistic peoples. 
Chinese The sects which have grown up in China, corn- 

Sects, pounded of Buddhist and Taoist elements, illus- 

trate the religious discontent of the earnest 
minded among the people. Some of these vege- 
tarian organizations represent a real religious 
longing, and have prepared multitudes to receive 
a purer faith when it has come. In his account 
of "Blind Chang, the Manchurian Martyr," the 
Rev. fames \\\ [nglis refers to a typical instance 
of these sects and their relationship to Chris- 
tianity. Speaking of Chao, a former convert in 
Manchuria, Mr. [nglis says: — 

For thirty-three years before his conversion, Chao had 
been a prominent member of a vegetarian sect — the 
Hun Yuen — with which Chang had also some con- 
nection ; and as most of the early converts in that 
district had a similar history, it is necessary to give 
some account of this society. 

This sect is said to have been founded three hundred 
years ago, in the same reign in which the early Jesuits 
entered China. Its teaching is a mixture of Buddhism 
with the native religion, called Taoism. The disciples 
of the sect are initiated with secret rites, and are 
taught a formula which must not be uttered, or the 
heavens will fall; it is as follows: — 

"On Kun Lun Mountain, Amida Buddha, 
Merciful Lord Buddha, come to the joyous city; 
O Buddha, sit on the spiritual mountain." 
The society is independent of the temples and the 
priesthood ; it consists of laymen, who pay a salary to 
their leaders, and even send agents to a distance to win 
new disciples. They meet in halls attached to private 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 163 

houses, which are sometimes without any idols, but the 
common custom is to wear, suspended from the neck, 
little bronze images of Buddha. They belong both to 
the middle class and to the humbler ranks of the people, 
and, as a rule, they are sincere and earnest men, seekers 
after truth, the moral elite of the nation. Their great 
aim, they declare, is "The Reform of the Character," 
to which end they adopt two methods — a vegetarian 
diet, and the reading of the books of the society. 
These books are all in manuscript, and generally in 
metre. I have seen a set of ten volumes, written with 
characters half an inch long, the decorated border alone 
costing a pound of our money. 

A convert once gave me, after his baptism, a book 
of prayers, addressed to the Goddess of Mercy. The 
first page read thus: "O merciful Goddess, that lookest 
on the earth, forgive me all my sins, both those com- 
mitted before entering the society, and those committed 
since." Was this but a cry in the dark, wrung from 
some burdened heart in its dire need, or was it an echo 
of the prayer of the publican in the temple, that had 
floated by unknown ways over the spaces of Central 
Asia? 

They that seek shall find ; and many of those who 
have found rest in the Christian Church have admitted 
that the "secret sects" had prepared the way for the 
coming of God's Kingdom. They had sought for the 
light, though by tortuous paths, and there are no better 
servants of the Cross to-day than those who formerly 
had been sincere in their idolatry. 

It is sufficiently clear that pure Confucianism Defects of 
has not satisfied the needs of China. China's Confucianism, 
titanic struggle to-day is to escape from the 
political and intellectual enslavement of Confu- 
cianism. The rise of popular Taoism and the 
introduction of Buddhism show how inadequate 



164 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Confucianism was to meet the religious needs of 
the empire. Confucianism is simply incompe- 
tent to meet such needs. It is a denial of their 
importance. (See Okuma, "Fifty Years of New 
Japan." Chapter on Confucianism by Professor 
Inouye, Vol. II, pp. 42, 64.) Its inadequacy 
and its positive errors and defects are summarized 
by Dr. Faber: — 

1. Confucianism recognizes no relation to a living 
God. 

2. There is no distinction made between the human 
soul and the body, nor is there any clear definition of 
man, either from a physical or fcrom ;i psychological 
point of view. 

3. There is no explanation given why it is that some 
men arc horn as saints and others as ordinary mortals. 

4. All men arc said to possess the disposition and 

strength necessary tor the attainmenl of moral perfec- 
tion, but the contrast with the actual state remains un- 
explained. 

5. There is wanting in Confucianism a decided and 
Serious tone in its treatment of the doctrine ot sin, for 
with the exception of moral retribution in social life it 
mentions no punishment for sin. 

6. Confucianism is generally devoid of a deeper 
insight into sin and evil. 

7. Confucianism finds it, therefore, impossible to 
explain death. 

8. Confucianism knows no mediator, none that could 
restore original nature in accordance with the ideal 
which man finds in himself. 

t 9. Praver and its ethical power finds no place in the 
system of Confucius. 

10. Though confidence is indeed frequently insisted 
upon, its presupposition, viz., truthfulness in speaking, 
is never practically urged, but rather the reverse. 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 165 

,11. Polygamy is presupposed and tolerated. 

12. Pantheism is sanctioned. 

13. Fortune telling, choosing of days, omens, dreams 
and other illusions (phoenixes, etc.) are believed in. 

14. Ethics are confounded with external ceremonies 
and a precise despotic political form. 

15. The position which Confucius assumed towards 
ancient institutions is a capricious one. 

16. The assertion that certain musical melodies in-l- 
luence the morals of the people is ridiculous. 

17. The influence of mere good example is exag- 
gerated, and Confucius proves it least of all. 

'" 18. In Confucianism the system of social life is 
tyranny. Women are slaves. Children have no rights 
in relation to their parents, whilst subjects are placed 
in the position of children with regard to their supe- 
riors. 

19. Filial piety is exaggerated into deification of 
parents. 

20. The net result of Confucius' system, as drawn 
by himself, is the worship of genius ; i. e., deification of 
man. 

21. There is, with the exception of ancestral worship, 
which is devoid of any true ethical value, no clear con- 
ception of the dogma of immortality. 

22. All rewards are expected in this world, so that 
egotism is unconsciously fostered, and if not avarice, 
at least ambition. 

23. The whole system of Confucianism offers no 
comfort to ordinary mortals, either in life or in death. 

24. The history of China shows that Confucianism 
is incapable of effecting for the people a new birth to 
a higher life and nobler efforts, and Confucianism is 
now in practical life quite alloyed with Shamanistic and 
Buddhistic ideas and practices. (Faber, "Systematical 
Digest of the Doctrines of Confucius," pp. 124-127.) 



166 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 






Contrasts In contrast with Christianity several of these 

with points need additional emphasis. Chinese reli- 

Ckristianity. g ion i ac k s t he ideal of unselfishness. The 

Chinese begin to realize their need of a religion 

which contains this ideal, and gives power for its 

realization. Mr. Cornaby of Shanghai writes: — 

Some influential non-Christian Chinese newspapers 

have lately declared, in a series of leading articles, that 
China has a number of ceremonial observances hut not 
religion, and that she must L, r ct a religion somewhere if 
she is to prosper. One article has the following words : 
"If we read history, we find that the decadence of the 
great nations of the past began with their religions and 
the acceptance of low ideals. China's lack of civic 

righteousness (official peculation and the like) is essen- 
tially a religious lack. No nation can afford to do 
without a religion; and to he strong, a nation must have 
a religion which demands the greatest amount of unsel- 
fishness." i Report of Commission IV, World Mission- 
ary Conference, Ch. III.) 

Chinese religion lacks also the fullness and 
strength, of the Christian morality, and yet morals 
is the chief glory of Confucianism. Hut with 
inadequate conceptions both of God and of man it 
cannot have the rich, forceful, ethical sense of 
Christianity. "In Confucianism," writes Mr. 
Arnold Foster, ''there is no doctrine of a divine 
love, nor any thought of a God who is love. 
There is a lack of sympathy with the poor, the 
outcast and the erring. There is no doctrine of 
faith as an objective movement of the soul; no 
realization of the weakness of man's will and of 
moral bias; no expectation of high moral char- 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 167 

acter in ordinary men; and learning, not conver- 
sion's the road to virtue. Sins of the heart, too, 
such as pride, are lightly regarded. In all these, 
and in many other directions, there must be a 
reaction in favor of Christianity." (Report of 
Commission IV, World Missionary Conference, 
Ch. III.) 

Confucianism knew the Golden Rule in a neg- The Golde: 
ative and passive form, quite different from the Rule, 
positive and active form in which Christianity 
knows it. "What you do not like when done to 
yourself, do not do to others," said Confucius. 
And this negative form allowed the doctrine of 
retaliation. "What do you say," asked a dis- 
ciple, "concerning the principle that injury 
should be recompensed with kindness?" The 
master said, "With what then will you recom- 
pense kindness ? Recompense injury with justice, 
and recompense kindness with kindness.''* 
"There is no spirit of forgiveness here," says 
Professor Douglas; "it is the stern law of an eye 
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Of the man 
who returns good for evil he speaks with con- 
tempt, as a cowardly creature who is 'careful of 
his person.' Far from checking the spirit of 
revenge, he inculcates it as a duty under certain 
circumstances." "What course is to be pur- 
sued," asked Tsze-hea, "in the case of the mur- 
der of a father or a mother?" "The son," said 
the Sage, "must sleep upon a mattress of grass, 
with his shield for his pillow; he must decline to 



168 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

take office ; he must not live under the same 
heaven with his slayer. When he meets him in 
the market place, or the court, he must have his 
weapon ready to strike him." (Douglas, "Con- 
fucianism and Taoism," p. 144 f . ) 
Woman. And just as in the case of every non-Christian 

religion, Confucianism breaks down in its atti- 
tude toward woman. The teaching of the 
Classics is that women arc as different in nature 
from man as earth is from heaven, that they are 
separate not only in bodily form, but in the very 
essence of nature; that though women are 
regarded as human beings, they are of a lower 
state than men ami can never attain to full 
equality with men; that women are to be kept 
under the power of men and not allowed any will 
of their own; that women cannot have any hap- 
piness of their own, — they have to live and work 
for men ; that only as the mother of a son, and 
especially of the continuator of the direct line of 
a family, can a woman escape from her degrada- 
tion and become to a degree equal to her hus- 
band, but then only in household affairs, es- 
pecially of the female department and in the 
ancestral hall, and that woman is bound to the 
same laws of existence even in the other world. 
She belongs to the same husband and is depend- 
ent for her happiness on the sacrifices offered 
by her descendants. (Faber, "The Status of 
Women in China," p. 12.) Seven causes of 
divorce are recognized, — barrenness, lascivious- 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 169 

ness, jealousy, talkativeness, thievery, disobedi- 
ence to her husband's parents, or leprosy; but a 
woman cannot be put away whose parents are not 
living to receive her back again. Parties can 
separate on mutual disagreement, but the code 
does not regulate the alimony; and a husband is 
liable to punishment if he retain a wife convicted 
of adultery. If a wife merely elopes she can be 
sold by her husband, but if she marry while 
absent she is to be strangled. If the husband be 
absent three years a woman must state her case to 
the magistrates before presuming to remarry. 
(Williams, "The Middle Kingdom," Vol. I, p. 
794.) Marriage is highly respected in China, 
and the career of the late Dowager Empress shows 
what influence women can exert, but it is true 
that "Confucius has nothing to say of the duties 
of husband and wife, and the later writers supply 
the deficiency only in part." (Knox, "The De- 
velopment of Religion in Japan," p. 158.) 

At every point where Confucianism is weak Inferiority 
Christianity is strong, and it has already shown of Confucian- 
by the service it has rendered China what it can 19m to Chrw- 
do which Confucianism has failed to do. As Sir iani y ' 
Alexander Simpson, Prof. Alexander Macalister 
and Mr. Francis William Fox said in a report 
which they made to the China Missions Emer- 
gency Committee in Great Britain in 1907: — 

Whilst the ancient ethics of China, which were at a 
later date collected and compiled by Confucius, have 
undoubtedly exercised for centuries a most beneficent 



170 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

and potent influence on the lives of Chinese and the 
Chinese nation ; vet these ethics have altogether lacked 
that dynamic power to mold their character and uplift 
effectually their ideas and surroundings, which Chris- 
tianity alone of all religious beliefs of the world seems 
able to accomplish. Christianity lias brought to the 
Chinese the knowledge of a supreme God of the Uni- 
verse, who is the Heavenly Father of all men; of a 
Redeemer and Saviour; of sin and sinfulness; it has 
taught thorn that all the inhabitants of earth — men, 
women, and children -are alike equal in the sight of 
God, and are members of one world-wide brotherhood; 
that they have souls needing salvation, and that the 
position of women must be placed on the same basis ;l s 
that of men. It has further revealed to them the joys 
and blessingsand the sweetness of the Christian's home, 
and the power to live purer ami truer lives; it has in- 
troduced into China a weekly day of rest, an institution 
previously unknown; it has developed in a marvelous 
way education and tin- press; it has advocated the un- 
binding of the Crippled feet of its women, and is thus 
likely to bring about the early emancipation from ter- 
rible sufferings and disabilities of neatly one-half the 

nous population of that vast empire; it has intro- 
duced new medical methods and skill, which already 
are lessening the untold bodily suffering- of its people; 
it has established hospitals and dispensaries, and in- 
stitutions for the blind, the deaf and dumb, and le 
Its representatives have denounced the improper use of 
opium, as well as the existing opium trade, and have 

ted the Chinese in their effo pe from the 

thraldom of the opium habit. Such are some of the 
great and many blessings which Christianity has already 
conferred upon China and its people. 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 171 

Each need of Confucianism is in reality a Points of 
point of contact with Christianity, but there are Contact be- 
also great Confucian principles which are in ac- tween Con- 
cord with Christian teaching. Dr. Faber has u cianlsm an 

Christianity. 

summarized these as follows: — 

1. Divine Providence over human affairs and visita- 
tion of human sin are acknowledged. 

2. An invisible world above and around this material 
life is firmly believed in. 

3. Moral law is positively set forth as binding 
equally on men and spirits. 

4. Prayer is offered in public calamities as well as 
for private needs, in the belief that it is heard and an- 
swered by spiritual powers. 

5. Sacrifices are regarded as necessary to come into 
closer contact with the spiritual world. 

6. Miracles are believed in as the natural efficacy of 
spirits. 

7. Moral duty is taught, and its obligation in the five 
human relations. 

8. Cultivation of the moral character is regarded as 
the basis for the successful carrying out of the social 
duties. 

9. Virtue is valued above riches and honor. 

10. In case of failure in political and social life, 
moral self-culture and practice of humanity are to be 
attended to even more carefully than before. 

11. Sincerity and truth are shown to be the only basis 
for self culture and the reform of the world. 

12. The Golden Rule is proclaimed as the principle 
of moral conduct among our fellow men. 

13. Every ruler should carry out a benevolent gov- 
ernment for the benefit of the people. (Faber, "China 
in the Light of History," pp. 57-59.) 



172 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

The two great features of Chinese life are filial 
piety and ethical propriety. Both of these fur- 
nish points of close contact with Christianity. 
Chang Chih Tung, the great Chinese viceroy in 
his book, bearing in its English translation the 
title "China's Only Hope," recognized the 
common ground in filial piety, though his knowl- 
edge of our Western view was not exact. "In 
the Mosaic Decalogue," he says, "the duty of 
honoring one's parents is placed next to that* of 
worshiping Heaven, and foreigners also put on 
mourning for deceased parents and wear black 
bands as the badge. Although they have no 
such things as ancestral halls, and tablets of 
deceased relatives, in lieu of these they place the 
photographs of their dead parents and brothers 
on the tables in their houses and make offerings 
to them. And while they make no sacrifices at 
the tombs of their ancestors, they repair their 
graves and plant flowers upon them as an act of 
worship. It will be seen, then, that Western 
people also hold, in common with us, the relation 
of Father and Son." ("China's Only Hope, " p. 
45 f.) 

And in the strong moral sense of Confucianism 
and Christianity there is a common meeting 
ground. Chinese religion has never sheltered 
what was immoral. It is a "remarkable trait of 
Chinese idolatry," as S. Wells Williams pointed 
out, "that there is no deification of sensuality, 
which, in the name of religion, could shield and 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 173 

countenance those licentious rites and orgies that 
enervated the minds of worshipers and polluted 
their hearts in so many other pagan countries. 
No Aphrodite or La^sjvmi occurs in the list of 
Chinese goddesses; no weeping for Thammuz; 
no exposure in the temple of Mylitta or obscene 
rites of the Durga-puja, have ever been required 
or sanctioned by Chinese priests; no nautch girls 
as in Indian temples, or courtesans as at Corinth, 
are kept in their sacred buildings. Their specu- 
lations upon the dual powers of the yin and yang 
have never degenerated into the vile worship of 
the linga and yoni of the Hindus, or of Amun- 
kem, as pictured on the ruins of Thebes. 
Although they are a licentious people in word 
and deed, the Chinese have not endeavored to 
lead the votaries of pleasure, falsely so called, 
further down the road of ruin, by making its path 
lie through a temple and trying to sanctify its 
acts by putting them under the protection of a 
goddess. Nor does their mythology teem with 
disgusting relations of the amours of their deities; 
on the contrary, like the Romanists, they exalt 
and deify chastity and seclusion as a means of 
bringing the soul and body nearer to the highest 
excellence. Vice is, in a great degree, kept out 
of sight, as well as out of religion." (Williams, 
"The Middle Kingdom," Vol. II, p. 192 f.) 

That vice has been kept out of the religion is 
not evidence that virtue is in the life, but the fact 
arrays religion on the side of morality and opens 



174 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

the mind of China to a faith which presents a 
loftier and richer moral ideal and at the same 
time offers the spiritual dynamic which is 
required to embody the ideal in life. 

The Confucian scheme called for the superior 
man and on the superior man built the righteous 
and peaceful state. Christianity alone presents to 
Confucianism the perfect ideal of the superior 
man. Christianity alone can produce the man. 
Christianity alone can fulfill the Confucianist 
dream of the orderly government by gathering 
"All under Heaven" into the Kingdom of God. 

BIBLE READINGS 
Third chapter of Hebrews. 



QUESTIONS 

Arc the Chinese a religious or an irreligious people? 
What was China's primitive religion? 

What is Animism? What is the message of Chris- 
tianity to the Animistic peoples? 

Narrate the life of Confucius. 
What was the character of Confucius? His influence? 

Was Confucius a believer in God or an agnostic? 

Should Christianity recognize ancestor worship? 

Give illustrations of the teachings of the Confucian 
Classics. 

Who was Mencius? What was his character? His 
doctrine? 

Describe the origins of Taoism. The character of 
its founder. 

What is Taoism to-day? 




Korea — Interior and Exterior of Devil House 



ANIMISM, CONFUCIANISM 176 

What are the defects of Confucianism ? 
What are the contrasts between Confucianism ana 
Christianity? 

What are the points of contact? 



SELECTED REFERENCE BOOKS 

Nassau, "Fetichism in West Africa," Scribner, 1904. 

Warneck, "The Living Christ and Dying Heathen- 
ism," Re veil, 1909. 

De Groot, "The Religion of the Chinese," Mac- 
millan, 1910. 

Ross, "Original Religion of China," Revell, 1909. 

Douglas, "Confucianism and Taoism," Gorham, 
1889. 

Legge, "The Religions of China," Scribner, 1881. 

Legge, "Life and Teachings of Confucius," Paul, 
Kegan, Trench & Trubner, 1887. 

Legge, "Life and Teachings of Mencius, " Paul, 
Kegan, Trench & Trubner, 1875. 

Du Bose, "Dragon, Image and Demon," Presby- 
terian Committee of Publication, 1899. 

Nevius, "China and the Chinese," Presbyterian 
Board of Publication, 1882. 

Parker, "China and Religion," Dutton, 1905. 



CHAPTER IV 
MOHAMMEDANISM 



CHAPTER IV 



MOHAMMEDANISM 



Mohammedanism is the only one of the great Tte 
religions of the world which is younger than Youngest 
Christianity. The development of Hinduism or . 

Religion. 

began four thousand years ago. Buddhism and 
Confucianism originated six centuries before 
Christ. Mohammed came six centuries after- 
wards. His religion accordingly claims to 
supersede Christianity, just as Christianity 
claims to supersede all that came before it. And 
Mohammedanism makes this claim explicitly. 
Christianity knew nothing of Hinduism and 
Buddhism and Confucianism when it set forth its 
universal character. It claimed the devotion of 
all men, not on the ground of a specific super- 
session of each religion held by men, but on the 
ground of its own universal and sufficient prin- 
ciple. But Mohammedanism came as the spe- 
cific and declared supersession of Christianity. 
In presenting Christianity to Mohammedans, 
accordingly, we are presenting that which is 
already known, or is supposed to be known, and 
which is already judged and superseded. This 
fact makes the missionary problem among 
Mohammedans unique. 



180 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



Diverse 
Judgments of 
Mohammed. 



It also accounts for the diverse judgments 
which have been entertained of Mohammed and 
Mohammedanism. It was not unnatural that the 
Christian view of both the Arabian teacher and 
his religion should be unfavorable and even bitter. 
Dante placed him in his ninth circle in the 
''Inferno," amongthe sowers of religious discord. 
Genebrard, a famous Roman Catholic controver- 
sialist, says of him and his Arabic Koran, "Mo- 
hammed was a beast, and only knew a language 
that was suited to his bestial condition." Alex- 
ander Ross, in translating a French version of the 
Koran into English, with some other rough 
speech, calls him "the great Arabian impostor." 
Tli is was the view of Dean Prideaux also, and 
of Charles Wesley in his hymn: — 
"The smoke of the infernal cave 

Which half the Christian world o'erspread, 
Disperse, Thou Heavenly Light, and save 

The soul 8 by that impostor led — 
That Arab thief, a- Satan bold, 
Who quite destroyed Thine Asian fold." 
(Bosworth Smith, ''Mohammed and Mohammed- 
anism," pp. G6-71.) And even Sale in his "Pre- 
liminary Discourse" to the translation of the 
Koran, while recognizing that Mohammed's 
4 ''original design of bringing the pagan Arabs to 
the knowledge of the true God was certainly 
noble, and highly to be commended," still 
declares, "It is scarce to be doubted but that 
Mohammed had a violent desire of being reckoned 
an extraordinary person, which he could attain 



MOHAMMEDANISM 181 

to by no means more effectually than by pretend- 
ing to be a messenger sent from God, to inform 
mankind of His will." (Sale, "Preliminary 
Discourse," p. 30 f.) 

These severe judgments are much modified in 
our day, however. The weakness and evil of 
Mohammedanism is more clearly seen than ever 
before; but a comparative estimate of Moham- 
med's character and work in the light of his own 
times, and a comparative judgment of his religion 
in view of the civilization from which it sprang 
and of the effects which it produced and of the 
type of Christianity which alone it touched, 
while deepening our conviction of the inadequacy 
and the positive iniquity of Mohammedanism, 
have enabled us also to appreciate both its real 
influence and the problem which its success 
presents. "There must be more said about him 
still," F. D. Maurice wrote of Mohammed's 
influence to Charles Kingsley. "The middle 
ages turn more upon him, and were more saved 
from perdition through him, than I had at all 
imagined till I came to think more of them. 
There would have been no belief in Christ, if 
there had not been that broad, fierce assertion of 
an absolute God, — let Newman say what he 
likes. . . . What he calls the Anti-Christ was 
the divine means of saving the Catholic Church 
from atheism." ("Life of F. D. Maurice," 
Vol. II, p. 239.) And the problem which Mo- 
hammedanism presents is expressed in the words 



182 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



Mohammed's 
Place in 
Mohammed- 
anism. 



of a Moslem, quoted in Browne's, "A Year 
Among the Persians" (p. 305): "When a man 
arises amongst a people, untaught and unsup- 
ported, yet speaking a word which causes empires 
to change, hierarchies to fall, and thousands to 
die willingly in obedience to it, that is a proof 
absolute and positive that the word spoken is from 
God. This is the proof to which we point in 
support of our religion. " 

The central Eact and problem of Mohammed- 
anism is Mohammed himself. His religion is 
related to him, and lie to it, in a sense which is 
true of no other religion except Christianity. 
Hinduism neither originated with a man, nor is 
it identified with any one personality. Buddhism 
came from one historic individual but, in his 
own view, the faith which Gautama taught was 
a way independent of him, and he was neither 
God nor a representative of God. Confucius 
was merely the teacher of truths, not the founder 
of a religion, nor the leader of a political order. 
lie was a moral and political philosopher, and 
not a prophet. But Mohammed's faith embraced 
two articles which were inseparable: "There is 
no god but God. and Mohammed is the prophet 
of God." Historically the religion sprang from 
Mohammed, and its creed coupled Mohammed's 
name indissolubly to God's. As Al-Ghazali, a 
distinguished Moslem theologian, writes, "Neither 
is the faith according to His will complete by 
the testimony to the Unity alone, — that is, by 



MOHAMMEDANISM 183 

simply saying, 'There is but one God,' — without 
the addition of the further testimony to the 
Apostle, — that is, the statement, 'Mohammed is 
the apostle of God.'" (Sell, "The Faith of 
Islam," p. 11.) And to the personality of the 
prophet we are driven to understand alike the 
origin and the nature of the faith. "If I might 
for a moment separate those elements that in 
reality never appear except in combination, I 
should say," writes Kuenen, "Islam is in a high 
degree, and far more than most other religions, 
the product not of the time or of the people, but 
of the personality of its founder." (Hibbert 
Lectures, p. 23.) And ever since its acceptance 
by the Arabian people, the religion of Moham- 
medanism has centered in Mohammed. His 
example and his teaching and his spirit have 
been the ideals of Islam. Mohammed has not 
been, as Christ was, the revelation of God; but 
his word about God has been the authoritative 
word, and his life and character have been the 
standard of what God accepts in man. 

Mohammed was born in Mecca on August 27th, Life of 
in the year of our Lord 570. At the time of his Mohammed, 
birth the government of Mecca was vested in a 
decemvirate, of which his grandfather was chief. 
The boy's father died before his birth, and his 
mother when he was six years old. His grand- 
father cared for him, however, and showed great 
tenderness toward the child. When he was 
nine, upon his grandfather's death, he passed into 



184 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

the care of his uncle. Fond of solitude, he spent 
many hours in the mighty lonesomeness of the 
desert. And in the deserts all the great mono- 
theistic faiths have been born. He studied the 
signs of God about him. His later teachings 
show how deep upon his imagination the rolling 
thunders of the Meccan hills and the forked 
lightnings of the desert skies had pressed the 
sense of the great, strong God. The life of the 
people was to him as an open book, and he knew 
all their homely ways; but education in the con- 
ventional sense he had none. The "Unlearned 
Prophet" was his title. In early manhood he 
made two journeys to Syria, and the degraded 
condition of Christianity there at that time 
offered him no solution of the problems on which 
he brooded, the problem of his own unsatisfied 
soul, and the problem of the idolatry and moral 
degradation of his people. All these years he 
seems to have lived a quiet and upright life. At 
the age of twenty-five he married Khadijah, a 
wealthy widow, fifteen years his senior. This 
marriage gave him affluence instead of indigence, 
and was in every way a happy and helpful 
relationship. For fifteen years he lived on in 
Mecca in the respect and good will of his towns- 
folk, by whom he was called "The Trusty," still 
meditating on his deep problems. When about 
the age of forty what the Moslems regard as his 
call came to him, in one vision and then in 
others, in which Gabriel appeared to him and 



MOHAMMEDANISM 185 

spoke to him the commission of God. At first he 
shrank from it, feared that he was losing his 
mind, and even thought of casting himself down 
some friendly precipice to gain rest from the 
ceaseless anguish of his soul, but Khadijah be- 
lieved in him, the divine commission grew clear 
to him, and out from the long years of quiet 
meditation and peaceful ease, he passed to the 
turbulent cares of a prophet of monotheism to an 
idolatrous people, and of the head of a nation 
fused into unity by the idea of subjugating the 
world. 

The first believers in his teaching and in his First 
mission as tfye prophet of God were his wife and Believers, 
his cousin Ali, and a few of the ablest and most 
respected men of Mecca, like Abu Bakr, Hamza 
and Omar. Persecution soon arose, however, 
and some of his disciples were sent off to Abys- 
sinia. There one of the exiled Moslems* gave an 
account of what the new faith had meant to 
them: "O king, we were plunged in the depth 
of ignorance and barbarism; we adored idols; we 
lived in unchastity ; we ate dead bodies, and we 
spoke abominations ; we disregarded every feeling 

*The name Moslem "meant naturally 'traitor,' and when the 
new sect came to be lampooned, it provided the satirists with a 
witticism. Mohammed showed some want of humor in adopting it, 
but displayed great | ingenuity in giving it an honorable meaning; 
whereas it ordinarily signified one who handed over his friends to 
their enemies, it was glorified into meaning one who handed over his 
person to God; and though, like Christian, it may conceivably have 
been first invented by enemies of the sect whom it designated, divine 
authority was presently adduced for the statement that Abraham coined 
the name." (Margoliouth, " Mohammed," p. 116 f.) 



186 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

of humanity and the duties of hospitality and 
neighborhood; we knew no law but that of the 
strong, when God raised among us a man of 
whose birth, truthfulness, honesty, and purity we 
were aware ; and he called us to the Unity of 
God, and taught us not to associate anything with 
Him; he forbade us the worship of idols; and 
enjoined us to speak the truth, to be faithful to 
our trusts, to be merciful and to regard the rights 
of neighbors; he forbade us to speak evil of 
women, or to eat the substance of orphans; he 
ordered us to fly from vices, and to abstain from 
evil: to offer prayers, to render alms, to observe 
the East. We have believed in him; we accept 
his teachings and his injunctions to worship God, 
and not to associate anything with Him." (Syed 
Ali, "Islam," p. 39 f.) There is no reason to 
disbelieve that this was the first fresh character of 
the new faith. Mohammed himself remained in 
Mecca until, after seeking in vain a peaceful 
home in Tayef, a neighboring city to Mecca, he 
fled on July Hi. 622, with Abu Bakr, to Medina, 
two hundred and fifty miles north of Mecca, to 
which most of his other disciples had already 
gone. This flight is the Ilegira, the year from 
which the Mohammedans date all the events of 
their history. 
r , . • Medina was thenceforth Mohammed's home 

Change in 

Mohammed's until his death in June, 632. During these ten 

Character. years there came great changes in Mohammed's 

own life and character and in the character of 



MOHAMMEDANISM 187 

Islam. So long as Khadijah lived, Mohammed 
was loyal to her as his one and truly beloved 
wife, but with her death and his settlement and 
increasing success 'in Medina, he married wife 
after wife, until he had taken eleven full wives, 
and he had beside a number of concubines or 
slave girls. No apologies can gloss over the sen- 
suality revealed by Mohammed during these ten 
years. Ayesha, his favorite wife, whom he 
married when she was nine years old, used to 
say, "The Prophet loved three things — women, 
scents and food; he had his heart's desire of the 
two first, but not of the last." It is true that he 
lived among degrading customs, but his own life 
with Khadijah shows that there were also whole- 
some and worthy marriage relationships, and 
around him were many families undefiled by the 
gross polygamy which henceforth characterized 
him. Moreover, in this matter he violated his 
own teaching, and the requirements which he 
laid upon others. They, as we shall see, were 
limited to four wives, while he took eleven. He 
justified himself in this by issuing chapters of the 
Koran divinely warranting his indulgence. "O 
Prophet," are the words which he declared God 
had spoken to him, "we have allowed thee thy 
wives whom thou hast dowered, and the slaves 
whom thy right hand possesseth . . . and any 
believing woman who hath given herself up to 
the Prophet, if the Prophet desireth towed her, — 
a privilege for thee above the rest of the Faith- 



18S THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

ful." Some disgraceful incidents were connected 
with his many amours, and high minded Moham- 
medans have had to apologize for their Prophet. 
In moral character he fell far below Buddha, and 
he is not to be mentioned in this regard with the 
great prophets of Israel who preceded him by 
many centuries, but whom he claimed to super- 
sede. Instead of, like Christ, offering a moral 
ideal to his followers, Mohammed is to them a 
moral warning. (See Koelle, "Mohammed and 
Mohammedanism," pp. 487-509; Ameer Ali 
Syed, "The Spirit of Islam," pp. 193-198.) 
Use of It was after reaching Medina, also, that 

Force. Mohammed began to use force in the- spread of 

his religion, and to introduce the idea of plunder 
and conquest. (Rouse, ''Tracts for Moham- 
medan-." p. GG.) At Meeea he had been with- 
out power which he could use, and his sole 
mission had been that of a religious reformer. 
But now at Medina his church became a state, he 
unhesitatingly began to use violence and the 
sword, and he poisoned the purity of religious 
motive by the lust of plunder. The traditions of 
Arabia and the environment and principles of the 
new faith readily explain these facts, but they do 
not justify them, and the facts themselves show 
the inferiority and inadequacy of Islam. Mo- 
hammed as soon as possible, acting as chief 
magistrate of Medina and as head of Islam, 
opened hostilities against the people of Mecca. 
The Mecca caravans to Syria had to traverse 



MOHAMMEDANISM 189 

routes where they could be intercepted from 
Medina. Mohammed set out to attack one of 
these caravans on the seacoast route. The cara- 
van escaped, but a battle was fought at Badr 
between Mohammed and an army sent from Mecca 
to protect the caravan from the threatened attack. 
This victory and the booty secured were the begin- 
ning of the relentless policy of conquest of Islam. 
(Sell, "The Battles of Badr and of Uhud," p. 43 
f.) Then began also Islam's policy of mingled 
mercy and pitiless cruelty. The prisoners taken 
at Badr were handcuffed and marched with the 
army returning to Medina. On the way two 
were ordered to be executed. One ventured to 
ask why he was dealt with more . rigorously than 
the rest. "Because, " replied Mohammed, "of 
thine enmity to God and His Prophet." "And 
my little girl," cried the captive, in bitterness of 
soul, "who will take care of her?" "Hell fire," 
answered the Prophet, as the victim was hewn to 
the ground. "Wretch and persecutor!" he con- 
tinued; "scorner of God, of His Prophet, and of 
His word; I thank the Lord, who hath comforted 
mine eyes by thy death." (Muir, "Mahomet 
and Islam," p. 100.) Individuals in Medina 
who troubled him he removed without qualms. 
A woman named Alma at Medina disbelieved in 
him and wrote poems against him. An assassin 
crept into her apartment at night, removed a 
suckling babe from her breast and transfixed her 
to her couch with his sword. "Next morning, 



190 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

in the Mosque at prayer, Omar acquainted Mo- 
hammed (who was aware of the design) with 
what he had done, and asked whether there was 
any cause for apprehension. 'None whatever,' 
replied the Prophet; f a couple of goats will 
hardly knock their heads together for it.' Then 
turning to the bystanders, he remarked, 'Behold 
a man that hath assisted the Lord and His 
Prophet.'" (Muir, ''Mahomet and Islam," p. 
103 f. ) A few weeks later, annoyed by another 
unbeliever, Mohammed exclaimed to those about 
him, "Who will rid us of this pestilent fellow?" 
A faithful friend shortly after fell upon the 
troubler as he slept. Some months after this Mo- 
hammed prayed aloud of another whom he dis- 
liked, "O Lord, rid me of the son of Ashraf in 
whatsoever way Thou wilt. " And then prompted 
his followers to murder by asking, "Who will 
ease me of this pestilent fellow, for he troubleth 
me.'" '"Here am I," said Mohammed son of 
Maslama, "I will slay him." With four others, 
he attacked him treacherously, and brought his 
head to the Prophet at the gateway of the 
Mosque. "Welcome." he exclaimed; "for I see 
that your faces beam with victory." "And 
thine too!" they added, as they cast the ghastly 
head of their victim at his feet. (Muir, '"Ma- 
homet and Islam," p. 107.) 

Mohammed now dealt with the Jewish tribes 
round about with relentless severity, seeking 
pretexts for their extermination or exile. He also 




Persia — Group of Dervishes 



MO II A MMEDANISM 191 

waged war against the Arab tribes in the interior, 
and, eight years after the Hegira, returned with 
an army of ten thousand and conquered Mecca. 

All this career of war and bloodshed, however, 
was rilled also with clemency and kindness. It 
was against unbelievers and adversaries that the 
Prophet displayed hostility and vindictiveness. 
The acceptance of Islam made a man at once 
his brother and his friend. In the development 
of Islam now, but especially later, it became 
necessary to devise working arrangements con- 
cerning the case of peoples who fell within the 
territory or authority of Islam, but who would 
not accept the religion. There was often good 
will and fairness shown in these relations, but 
this was the exception and not the rule, and both 
in Mohammed's lifetime and afterwards, the 
pressure of persecution and oppression upon all 
unbelievers was almost crushing. 

These developments of Mohammed's character 
and methods at Medina, following naturally upon 
his religious success and the position of political 
authority which he of necessity took up, were 
accompanied by interesting developments in his 
religious teaching. At Mecca and when he first 
came to Medina, when he still hoped to win the 
Jewish tribes, the sections of the Koran which he 
gave out were full of Christian and Jewish 
elements, but these elements grew less and less, 
although the growing Koran still preserved all 
that was good in the new faith. At first in 
Medina Mohammed prayed toward Jerusalem. 



Infl 



uencc. 



192 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

But he turned soon to Mecca and thenceforward 
his religion faced back towards its semi-pagan 
and Ishmaelitic elements. Nevertheless the truly 
religious fervor of the faith glowed with a great 
burning, and when Mohammed died on June 8, 
632, the new force which he had introduced had 
remolded Arabia, and begun to affect the whole 
Eastern world. 
Mohammed's Ameer Ali, Syed, representing the best type of 
Modern Mohammedan, sums up the Moslem view 
of the Prophet's influence: — 

Thus disappeared from the scene one of the greatest, 
if not in very truth the greatest, of God's servants, who 
have lived and worked for the good of mankind. He 
found the bulk of his own people sunk in the grossest 
fetichism, decimated by tribal feuds, addicted to infan- 
ticide and the worst forms of pagan practices. Here 
and there individuals had broken away from the old 
cults, but were still groping in darkness in search of 
the road to truth and salvation, unsatisfied spirits to 
whom neither Judaism nor Christianity brought any 
solution to the enigmas of life. 

In less than a decade he not only stamped out the 
pagan ways and habits which held the heart of Arabia, 
but infused into his folk a new life, imparted to them a 
new conception of duty, of moral responsibilities of 
which they had been wholly devoid before. The benef- 
icence of his work was not confined to his own 
countrymen. His words revived the religious spirit of 
surrounding nations, whose moral abasement was 
equally deplorable. (Ameer Ali, Syed, "Islam," p. 
51 f . ) " 

This estimate regards as accomplished what 
Abu Bakr and Omar had to do as the first Khali fs 



MOHAMMEDANISM 193 

or successors of Mohammed. But the task was 
already done in germ. As Professor Margoliouth 
says, "His political work was not left half 
finished at his death; he had founded an empire 
with a religious and a political capital; he had 
made a nation of a loose agglomeration of tribes. 
He had given them a rallying point in their 
common religion, and therein discovered a bond 
more permanent than a dynasty. The old faiths 
which had survived so long in secluded Arabia 
had been given their death blow; some of their 
practice was indeed taken over unaltered, but the 
old names were utterly destroyed. l Though 
Mohammed is dead, yet is Mohammed's God not 
dead.' " (Margoliouth, "Mohammed," p. 471 

t) 

On no problem in human character has there Tke Problem 
been, perhaps, more dispute than on the character of Motam- 
of Mohammed. Was he a good man or a bad me< * s Cbar- 
man, a prophet or an impostor? The Rev. G. A. 
Lefroy, Bishop of Lahore, a true Christian mis- 
sionary and a lover of the Mohammedan peoples, 
has set forth what we must hold to be the true 
answer : — 

I believe Mohammed to have been, especially in the 
beginning of his career, an earnest man, genuinely 
seeking after truth with, in large measure, pure 
motives, and free from personal aims. I believe that 
he saw truths far grander and deeper than those which 
most of his countrymen saw, and that he labored hard 
and long, amid every discouragement and often at the 
risk of his life, to bring home to his people the knowl- 



194 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

edge of these truths and to redeem them from the gross 
idolatry, the infanticide, and the many social and 
religious evils in which they were sunk. I have no 
doubt that he believed he had a real mission of God, 
and I believe he was right in thinking so, and that, 
at any rate at one part of his life, the spirit of God 
was working strongly within him, and calling him to 
a great work. But I believe that with the access of 
power there came a fatal lowering of aims, and of the 
tone of his own life, till — from regarding himself so 
long as the mouthpiece of God — he permitted himself 
first to disregard his conscience, and then to take that 
last and awful step, in which also he is not alone among 
those whom God has called to noble aims and high 
privileges, of identifying the voice of God with the 

prompting even of his lower nature, and claiming the 
divine authority for that which he ought to have 
repelled as, what it indeed was, the very tempting of 

the evil one himself. (" Mahomedanism, Its Strength 

and Weakness," p. 21. i 
Was According to the standards of goodness pre- 

Mohammed a vailing in Arabia in the seventh century, Mo- 
Prophct? hammed was a truly good and noble man. He 

was guilty of bloodshed and sensuality, but these 
were common Arabian vices. Pie was in the 
conditions of his time a righteous man. Measured 
by the character of Christ he was pitiable and vile. 
As to his teaching, he saw and taught some great 
truths. Those who believed on his word were 
led forward into a far nobler thought of God than 
they had ever had before. It was an inadequate 
thought of God, but it was great and splendid, 
and so far as it was true, the man who saw it and 
spoke it was teaching the truth of God. But as 



MOHAMMEDANISM 195 

prophet in the sense that Isaiah or Paul were 
prophets, as pure spiritual teachers representing 
the highest moral ideals, or even more in the 
sense that Christ was a Prophet, a prophet Mo- 
hammed was not. The moral and intellectual 
and spiritual limitations of his message show that 
he bore no such commission as the prophets of 
Israel, or the apostles of Christ. Whatever moral 
superiority and prophetic authority Mohammed 
had were relative, in comparison wholly with the 
Arabian life about him. They were not absolute 
or ideal. In so far as they have been made so by 
Islam they have been a shackle and a shame to 
humanity. 

And, now, we must ask what was the religion Motammed- 
which Mohammed founded, and which is held anism. 
to-day by two hundred million of our fellow 
creatures ? With Mohammed it was at the outset 
the acceptance of the fundamental declaration, 
"There is no god but God and Mohammed is the 
prophet of God," but its theology and ritual soon 
outgrew the single affirmation with which it began. 
We can gain a general view of the faith by con- 
sidering its foundations, its doctrines and its prac- 
tical duties. (See Sell, "The Faith of Islam.") 

1. The foundations of Islam are four, the The Founda- 
Koran, the Sunnat, Ijma and Qias. tions of Islam. 

The first and main foundation is the Koran. Tke Koran. 
The word Koran is derived from the Arabic word 
to read. For this Bible of Mohammedanism the 
Moslems have the loftiest veneration. It is held 



106 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

by them to have existed uncreated from eternity, 
resting on a great table of fabulous size, from 
which it was brought down as needed by Gabriel, 
who gave it to Mohammed phrase by phrase and 
word by word. Mohammed in admitting that he 
worked no miracles, appealed instead to the 
Koran, which he claimed as a unique and per- 
petual miracle. And it has been so regarded by 
Moslems. 

So sacred is the text supposed to be that only the 
Companions of the Prophet are deemed worthy of being 
commentators on it. The work of learned divines since 

then has been to learn the Koran by heart and to master 
the traditions, with the writings of the earliest com- 
mentators thereon. The revelation itself is never made 
a subject of investigation or tried by the ordinary 
rules of criticism. If only the Isnad, or chain of 
authorities for any interpretation, is good, that inter- 
pretation is unhesitatingly accepted as the correct one. 
It is a fundamental article of belief that no other book 
in the world can possibly approach near to it in thought 
or expression. It deals with positive precepts, rather 
than with principles. Its decrees are held to be bind- 
ing, not in the spirit merely, but in the very letter, on 
all men, at all times and under every circumstance 
of life. This follows as a natural consequence from 
the belief in its eternal nature. (Sell, "The Faith of 
Islam," p. 6 t) 

While held to be an eternal, uncreated book, 
the Koran nevertheless is made up of a long 
series of Mohammed's utterances in the form of 
revelations from God, uttered by God in the first 
person plural ; and these revelations, so far from 
being eternal, often contradict one another, later 



MOHAMMEDANISM 197 

ones abrogating earlier ones ; they are full of 
legends learned secondhand from Rabbinic 
traditions of the Jews, or from apocryphal Chris- 
tian books; and when chronologically arranged, 
their connection with the successive incidents and 
problems of Mohammed's life makes them almost 
autobiographical. Ameer Ali, Syed, frankly 
concedes the influence of contemporary thought 
upon Mohammed's mind: — 

There is no doubt that in the Suras of the intermediate 
period, before the mind of the teacher had attained the 
full development of religious consciousness, and when 
it was necessary to formulate in language intelligible 
to the common folk of the desert, the realistic descrip- 
tions of heaven and hell, borrowed from the floating 
fancies of Zoroastrianism, Sabianism and the Talmudic 
Jew, attract the attention as a side picture, and then 
comes the real essence — the adoration of God in 
humility and love. The hooris are creatures of Zo- 
roastrian origin, so is paradise (in Persian "firdaus"), 
whilst hell, in the severity of its punishment, is Tal- 
mudic. ("Spirit of Islam," p. 235 f. Quoted in Gold- 
sack, "The Origins of the Qur'an, " p. 10 f. ) 

A single breath of true criticism destroys the 
Moslem idea of an eternal Koran. But the 
obvious use of the revelations by Mohammed to 
provide for crises which arose, is destructive not 
only of the idea of an uncreated book, but also of 
the claim of the book as a true revelation from 
God. (See Sell, "Historical Development of the 
Quran.") When his wives complained with 
good reason of his irregularities, he silenced them 
by a regulation allowing him conjugal excesses 
which he had himself proscribed as unlawful, 



198 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

When he wished to marry the wife of his adopted 
son, a form of marriage forbidden by his own 
law, he issued a revelation from God encouraging 
him to the transgression. It is wonderful that 
the faith of his followers bore the strain. It not 
only bore it, but it also elevated the revelations 
into the very eternal being of God. 

After Mohammed's death the revelations which 
were scattered about were collected. Subse- 
quently an authorized edition was prepared and 
all others were destroyed, and the uncreated, un- 
translatable miracle of the Koran was passed 
down to us. The true Moslem still deems it the 
book of all books, holding a theory of literal 
inspiration and absolute authority regarding it, 
and seeing in it a truly heavenly beauty. The 
Western mind has usually taken an unfavorable 
view of it. Nevertheless the Koran is a wonder- 
ful book, with many passages of noble truth, and 
of great beauty, preserved even in our translations 
of what the Moslems regard as its miraculous 
• Arabic. 
Sunnat, Ijma The other foundations of Islam are the Sunnat, 

and Qias. Ijma and Qias. The Sunnat is "the basis of 

religious faith and practice, which is founded on 
traditional accounts of the sayings and acts of 
Mohammed." In all that he did and said Mos- 
lems hold that Mohammed was supernaturally 
guided. It is this which makes his moral ex- 
ample so dangerous. And the contention that 
Mohammed did not himself claim this authority 



MOHAMMEDANISM 199 

cannot be upheld. "He who loves not my Sun- 
nat (z. e., my command or example) is not my 
follower." This was his own word, and a 
learned theologian of Islam has stated the essence 
of religion to consist of three things: "first, to 
follow the Prophet in morals and in acts ; 
secondly, to eat only lawful food; thirdly, to be 
sincere in all actions." (Sell, "The Faith of 
Islam," p. 15.) There are six books of these 
Traditions and every accepted act or word of Mo- 
hammed's in them is a law as binding upon the 
Moslem as the word or example of Christ is upon 
Christians. The third foundation of the Faith is 
called Ijma, a word meaning collected. It means 
technically the general consent of the leading 
theologians, but pre-eminently it is a collection 
of the opinions of the Companions, the men who 
knew Mohammed. Qias is the fourth foundation. 
It means the reasoning of the learned with regard 
to the teaching of the three other foundations. 

These four foundations are regarded by Mos- The 
lems as forming a perfect basis of religion and Foundations a 
polity. "They secure the permanence of the Shackle Upon 
system, but they repress an intelligent growth." 
No nation can advance around whose intellectual 
and political life the coils of these antiquated 
authorities are wound. "The jurists of Persia, 
it seems, are against constitutionalism," said 
Isma'il Hakki Effendi, one of the best known 
Mohammedan preachers in Constantinople, in a 
sermon in 1909. "Those rascals have always 



200 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

been on the side of autocracy. A group of the 
Persian Ulema belonging to the royalists are 
clamoring for despotic government. . . . And 
the jurists solemnly declare that this is not their 
own ruling but that of the canon law of Moham- 
medanism. . . . According to the false notions 
of the Persian Ulema, Islam does not permit of 
constitutionalism, but is an absolute monarchy! 
Oh, reverent jurists, there is no religion, no code 
which advocates constitutionalism as strongly as 
does Islam." ("Moslem Sermon-." "Hibbert 
Journal," April. L910, p. 658.) Our hearts re- 
joice with the preacher in his deliverance. 
Nevertheless the Persian priests are right. Islam 
can live under constitutionalism, but it will not be 
the Islam of Mohammed and the Khalifs and of 
the fourteen centuries of consistenl Mohammedan 
absolutism. 
~, ~ 2. The doctrine of Islam. The Kalima is the 

1 he Doctrine 

of Islam. simple creed of Islam: "There is no god but God 

and Mohammed is the Apostle of God," but this 
includes a- indispensable the acceptance of God, 
Angels, Books, Prophets, the Resurrection and 
Day of Judgment, and the Predestination of good 
and evil. 

~, x/r , The central merit of Mohammedanism was its 

1 he Moslem 

Idea of God. uncompromising assertion of the unity and sov- 
ereigns of God. Men must surrender to Him. 
Hence the name of Islam, by which Mohammedan- 
ism is known, — surrender. The Koran is full of 
the noble proclamation of this truth of God's single 



MOHAMMEDANISM 201 

supremacy: "God, there is no God but He, the 
living, the eternal; slumber doth not overtake 
Him, neither sleep ; to Him belongeth all that is 
in heaven and in earth. Who is he that can in- 
tercede with Him but with His own permission? 
He knoweth that which is past and that which is 
to come unto them, and they cannot comprehend 
any of His knowledge but so far as He pleaseth. 
His throne is extended over heaven and earth, and 
the upholding of both is no burden unto Him. 
He is the lofty and the great." 

Mohammed did not discover monotheism. 
From the Jews and from the Hanifs, a con- 
temporary theistic sect, from many currents of 
thought and from the unified testimony of Nature 
in the desert, he knew of the one God. The 
great fact, however, was that the sense of this 
one God and of His government of men became 
the overwhelming conviction of Mohammed's 
soul, and lifted him into a consciousness of 
mission which bore him out into his wonderful 
career. In the midst of timid and wrangling men 
and nations sunk in practical atheism, and godless 
Jews and idolatrous Christians, he stood forth as 
one who knew God and was not afraid: — 

He it is who shows you the lightning for fear and 
hope ; and He brings up the heavy clouds. And the 
thunder celebrates His praise, and the angels too, for 
fear of Him. And he sends the thunder clap and over- 
takes therewith whom He will. Yet they wrangle about 
God ! But He is strong in might. 



202 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Your God is one God ; there is no God but He, the 
Merciful, the Compassionate. Verily in the creation 
of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of 
night and day, and in the ship that runneth in the sea 
with that which profits man, and in what water God 
sends down from heaven and quickens therewith the 
earth after its death, and spreads abroad therein all 
kinds of cattle, and in the shifting of the winds, and in 
the clouds that are pressed into service betwixt heaven 
and earth, are sign- to people who can understand. 

The Moslem idea of God, however, has lacked 
from the outset elements without which it is both 
false and unfruitful. The essential attributes of 
God in Islam are Lite, Knowledge, Power, Will, 
Hearing, Seeing, Speech. The Koran contains 
ninety-nine name- of God, and these are of course 
attributes, but the seven named are the primary 
and essential ones. And they fail to include, 
and this is the defect of the whole Moslem doctrine 
of God, the fatherhood of God, the attribute of 
love, and the principle of ethical justice, while 
the conceptions which are included in the Mos- 
lem view are inharmonious among themselves. 
(Zwemer, ''The Moslem Doctrine of God"; 
Gairdner, "The Muslim Idea of God"; Gold- 
sack. "God in Islam"; Zwemer, "Islam," p. 86 
f; Rice. "Crusaders of the Twentieth Century, " 
pp. 231-239.) God is ''the Absolute, the Un- 
conditioned, the Xot-responsible to men, the Ir- 
resistible in will and power, the Unbegotten and 
Unbegetting, the All-sufficient, who needs neither 
the world nor the men whom He has created." 
(Gairdner, "The Muslim Idea of God," p. 12.) 



MOHAMMEDANISM 203 

The Moslem conception of God, as Dr. Wash- 
burn says, "is that of an absolute oriental 
monarch, and His unlimited power to do what 
He pleases makes entire submission to His will 
the first, most prominent duty. The name which 
they give to their religion implies that. It is 
Islam, which means submission or resignation. 
("Parliament of Religions," Vol. I, pp. 569, 
570.) And Palgrave, whose knowledge and 
judgment were reliable, says of the Moslem 
idea: — 

God is one in the totality of omnipotent and omni- 
present action which acknowledges no rule, standard, or 
limits, save one sole and absolute will. He himself, 
sterile in His inaccessible height, neither loving nor 
enjoying aught save his own and self-measured decree, 
without son, companion, or councillor, is no less barren 
for Himself than for His creatures ; and His own bar- 
renness and lone egoism in Himself is the cause and 
rule of His indifferent and unregarding despotism 
around. 

There was far more in Mohammed's idea than 
this, and this idea, inadequate as it was, bred a 
certain great manhood in those who held it, but 
it contained no elements of fellowship or of life. 
It was in its very nature alien and antagonistic 
to the central Christian ideal of God as father. 

The Moslem creed includes an elaborate faith Angels, Books, 
in Angels, many of whom are named and their Prophets, 
duties designated, and in genii or jinns, beings 
created of fire long before man, and in sacred 
Books of which there are one hundred and four 



204 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

in all, sent down through Gabriel to the prophets, 
— to Adam ten, to Seth fifty, to Enoch thirty, to 
Abraham ten, to Moses the Tamat or Pentateuch, 
to David the Psalms, to Jesus the Injil or Gospel, 
to Mohammed the final and superseding book, 
the Koran, which, as Al Berkevi says, "is to be 
followed till the day of judgment. It can neither 
be abrogated nor changed." Regarding the belief 
in Prophets, Al Berkevi says: — 

It is necessary to confess that God has sent prophets; 
that Adam is the first of the prophets and the father of 
all men; that Mohammed is the last of the prophets; 
that between Adam and Mohammed there were a great 
number of prophets ; that Mohammed is the most ex- 
cellent of all and that his people are the best of all 
people-; that each of the preceding prophets was sent 
to a special people, some with books, some without, 
hut that Mohammed was sent to all men and also to the 
genii; that his law will remain until the end of the 
world. (Sell, "The Faith of Islam," p. 150.) 

Resurrection, Then will come the Resurrection and the Judg- 
Judgment and m ent,of which the Koran and the Moslem writers 
Hearen. ^ yQ y [ y [ L \ pictures (Sale, "Preliminary Dis- 

course, " Section IV. pp. 59-80), culminating in 
the familiar descriptions of Paradise, which Ameer 
Ali interprets figuratively, but which the general 
and orthodox opinion has always received in the 
obvious and literal acceptance. 

But for him who dreadeth the tribunal of his Lord, 
are prepared two gardens. Planted with shady trees. 
In each of them shall be two fountains flowing. In 
each of them shall there be of every fruit two kinds. 
They shall repose on couches, the linings whereof shaU 



MOHAMMEDANISM 205 

be of thick silk interwoven with gold ; and the fruit of 
the two gardens shall be near at hand together. Therein 
shall receive them beauteous damsels, refraining their 
eyes from beholding any besides their spouses, whom 
no man shall have deflowered before them, neither any 
jinn. Having complexions like rubies and pearls. 
Shall the reward of good works be any other than good? 
And besides these there shall be two other gardens. Of 
a dark green. In each of them shall be two fountains 
pouring forth plenty of water. In each of them shall 
be fruits, and palm trees and pomegranates. Therein 
shall be agreeable and beauteous damsels. Having fine 
black eyes ; and kept in pavilions from public view. 
Whom no man shall have deflowered, before their des- 
tined spouses, nor any jinn. Therein shall they delight 
themselves, lying on green cushions and beautiful car- 
pets. Blessed be the name of thy Lord possessed of 
glory and honor. (Koran, Sura LV, 41-78.) 

The remaining dogma of the Mohammedan Predestina- 
confession is predestination. Some quotations tion. 
from the Koran and the Traditions, which it must 
be remembered are in Moslem eyes as valid as 
the Koran, will suffice to represent the Moslem 
doctrine. "The Prophet said, Verily, the first 
thing which God created was the pen. And He 
said to it, write. It said, what shall I write? 
He said, write down the divine decrees (qadar) ; 
and it wrote down all that was and all that will 
be to eternity. " "And God has created you and 
what ye do." "Every man's fate (lit., bird) 
have we fastened on his neck." "He leads 
astray whom He will, and guides whom He 
will." "The plague is a punishment . . . and 
when it arrives at any place where you are, do 



206 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

not flee away from it." " Verily God most high 
has ordained five things on each of His servants 
from His creation: his appointed time, his 
actions, his dwelling place, his travels and his 
subsistence." Little wonder that, with such a 
creed, the Companions of the Prophet should ask 
in bewilderment, "What use, then, of our 
striving at all?" To which Mohammed made the 
rejoinder, '"When God creates* any servant for 
heaven, lie causes him to go in the way of those 
destined for heaven, until he dies, after which 
He takes him to heaven. And when He creates 
any servant for the fire of hell, then lie causes 
him to go in the way of those destined for hell 
until his death, after which He takes him to 
hell!" 

The moving finger writes; and, having writ, 
Moves on; nor all your piety or wit 

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, 
\ ir all your tears wash out a word of it. 

What Omar Khayyam puts in his cynical verse, 
Al Berkevi candidly concedes: "It is necessary 
to confess that good and evil take place by the 
predestination and predetermination of God, that 
all that has been and all that will be was decreed 
in eternity, and written on the preserved table ; 
that the faith of the believer, the piety of the pious 
and good actions are foreseen, willed, predestined, 
decreed by the writing on the preserved table ; 
produced and approved by God; that the unbelief 
of the unbeliever, the impiety of the impious and 



MOHAMMEDANISM 207 

bad actions come to pass with the foreknowledge, 
will, predestination and decree of God, but not 
with His satisfaction and approval. Should any 
ask why God willeth and produceth evil, we can 
only reply that He may have wise ends in view 
which we cannot comprehend." (Sell, "The 
Faith of Islam," p. 173.) 

It cannot be charged that this hopeless doctrine 
of an iron predestinarianism affected the freedom 
of movement of Mohammed and the Khalifs who 
succeeded him. It did not. On the other hand, 
it gave them such a resistless courage and undy- 
ing purpose as neither man nor nature could sub- 
due. But when the first vivid enthusiasm 
subsided, then the inevitable poison of the doctrine 
began to work its effects. "Before thou and I 
were thought of," writes the poet Farzi, "our 
free will was taken from our hands ; be without 
cares, for the Maker of both worlds settled our 
affairs long before we were made." In personal 
morals Omar Khayyam draws out the consequence 
of Mohammed's doctrines: — 

The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes, 

But Right or Left, as strikes the Player goes ; 
And He that toss'd Thee down into the Field, 

He knows about it all — -He knows — He knows ! 

With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead, 

And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed ; 
Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote 

What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read. 

Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, 
And who with Eden didst devise the Snake ; 

For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man 
Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness give — and take! 



208 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

And as to national life, Sell's judgment is too 
temperate: "It is this dark fatalism which, what- 
ever the Koran may teach on the subject, is the 
ruling principle in all Moslem communities. It 
is this which makes all Mohammedan nations 
decay. Careless of self-improvement, heedless 
of the need of progress, the Moslem nations, still 
independent, arc in all that relates to the higher 
aspects of intellectual and civilized life, far 
behind the nations of the West." 
Five 3. The practical duties of Islam are five. (1) 

Practical The recital of the Kalima or confession of faith 

Duties. j n t j lc s ] lnrt form already given, or in the longer 

form, such as, "I testify that there is no deity 
but God, 1 testify to His unity and that He has 
no partner; I testify that Mohammed is His 
servant and Hi- messenger." The short con- 
Ee8Sion embodies the very spirit of Islam. "It 
has led everywhere the march of its armies, it 
has rung for twelve centuries in the morning air 
from its minarets, it has been passed from lip to 
lip. as no other word has ever been passed, by 
thousands of millions of the human race." 

(2) Namaz, or the five stated periods of prayer, 
preceded by the specified ablutions with water, 
or under certain circumstances, with sand. Unless 
these ablutions are made with absolute precision 
and the prayer offered with perfect observance 
of the ritual, the whole supplication is futile. 
The hours are before sunrise, when noon is past, 
midway between noon and sunset, a few minutes 



MOHAMMEDANISM 209 

after sunset, and between sunset and midnight. 
They must all be in Arabic. A Moslem was 
excommunicated in India for saying that the 
prayers might be in Hindustani. In spite of 
their fatalism, one might say all the more by 
reason of it, the Moslems believe in prayer, and 
they pray with an openness and sincerity which 
puts to shame many Christian peoples. 

(3) Roza, the thirty days fast of Ramazan, the 
month in the Moslem calendar in which the 
Koran was sent down to be man's guidance. No 
part of Mohammedanism gives clearer evidence 
of the sincerity and earnestness of Islam than this 
fast. The Moslem calendar is not solar, as ours 
is, and Ramazan sometimes falls in the summer. 
Yet for the whole of this month, even in the hot- 
test weather, all Moslems must abstain from all 
food and all liquid from sunrise to sunset. There 
is, of course, great indulgence at night, and rich 
Moslems simply reverse night and day, sleeping 
during the day, but the poor cannot do this, and 
the pious spend the month in studying the Koran 
and in prayer. 

(4) Zakat, or almsgiving. Every Moslem of 
full age must give a proportion of his wealth each 
year to alms. Two and a half per cent is the 
common percentage required, but of the produce 
of land naturally watered one-tenth is due. The 
Zakat may not be given for building mosques, or 
for personal expenses or to set a slave free, or to 
parents or children, or to wife or husband, or to 
a slave. It must be given as bona fide alms. 



210 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

The duty is much evaded, but the principle of 
almsgiving is inground in Moslems. 

(5) The Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. The 
pilgrimage must be made by every free Moham- 
medan who is sound in body and of full age, when 
he has sufficient means to pay his expenses, after 
duly providing for the support of his household 
till his return. If death overtake a man before 
he has made the pilgrimage, he is accounted a 
sinner. This pilgrimage was an ancient Arabian 
institution which Mohammed took over as a uni- 
fying element in his religion. A small minority 
of the Mohammedans of the world have ever 
made the Hajj. Those who have done so are 
exalted persons in their communities. The con- 
ditions under which the pilgrimage has been 
made, the unhygienic conditions in Mecca, the 
common drinking from the well Zem-zem, the 
common kissing of the black stone in the Kaabah, 
the temple at Mecca, and the debauchery of many 
of the pilgrim caravans, have made Mecca a great 
danger center, but the religious fervor of the 
rites of the Hajj and the unifying influence of 
this central gathering of the Faithful, have justi- 
fied it even in the minds of Moslem Modernists. 
The Spread or These were the foundations, the doctrines and 
Mohammed- the duties of the great religious force which 
amsm. gathered in Arabia in the seventh century and, 

with its battle cry "Allah Akhbar, " "God is 
great," and its brief but mighty creed, "There 
is no god but God, and Mohammed is the Apostle 



MOHAMMEDANISM 211 

of God," moved out upon the world. Already in 
Mohammed's life three embassies had been sent 
to Heraclius, the Emperor of the Greeks, and to 
the Chosroes Dynasty of Persia to summon them 
to Islam, and by the time of the Prophet's death 
his power was paramount through Arabia. 
Much remained to be done, however, even in his 
own land, and Abu Bakr, who succeeded him as 
Khalif, or head of Islam, and who was a just and 
simple man, showed great ability in solidifying 
the Moslem power in Arabia, as well as in ex- 
tending it abroad. The latter was indeed the 
chief method by which he effected the former. 
The seeds of tragedy in the new faith bore fruit 
in the violent deaths of the three Khalif s who 
succeeded Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and Ali, and 
never from its origin until to-day has Islam 
known unity and peace, but never during all these 
centuries has it ceased to spread. Its victorious 
arms were carried into Persia, Syria and Egypt, 
and then across Africa into Spain and France 
until Charles Martel stopped its westward march 
between Poitiers and Tours in 732, and across 
Asia Minor and the Hellespont into Eastern 
Europe until John Sobieski halted it at Vienna 
in 1683; across Persia into Central Asia and 
India, where it holds its own to-day with more of 
its followers under the British King than it has 
under any Moslem governor; across the roof of 
the world the new faith passed into China, 
where there are over five million Mohammedans ; 



212 THE LIGHT OP THE WORLD 

around the Southern Seas it swept to the East 
Indies and beyond; and lastly, because the 
movement is yet going on, it spread southward 
and is spreading- still among the tribes of the 
great heart of Africa. Its impetuous spirit at the 
outset bade fair to cany it wherever a warrior 
could walk or ride his horse. "Great God," 
said Akbah as he spurred his horse ^nto the waves 
of the Atlantic, after victoriously crossing the 
entire north of Africa, "if my course were not 
6topped In- this sea. I would still go on to the un- 
known kingdom of the West, preaching the unity 
of Thv holy name, and putting to the sword the 
rebellious nations who worship any other gods 
than Thee." (Dods, '•Mohammed, Buddha and 
Christ," p. 102. See Haines "Islam as a Mis- 
sionary Religion. ") 
Schism. This widespread development of Moham- 

medanism has not come, however, without deep- 
reaching internal schisms. These existed in 
tammed's time and they multiplied after his 
death. There were political rivalries and theo- 
logical divisions, and Mohammed's prediction 
has c«;me true. "The Magians are divided into 
seventy sects, " say the Mohammedans, "the Jews 
into seventy-one, the Christians into seventy-two, 
and the Moslems into seventy-three, as Moham- 
med had foretold." The first great breach in 
Islam arose out of civil war between Ali, the 
fourth Khalif. and his rival, Muavia. Ali and 
his two sons were killed, and to this day are 



MO HA MMEDA NISM 213 

regarded by the Shi ah sect as their great heroes 
and martyrs, while they look upon the Sunnis, or 
orthodox Moslems, as scarcely closer to them than 
Christians. The Persian Mohammedans and 
some of the Moslems of India are Shiahs. The 
Shiahs reject the first three Khalifs as usurpers 
of Ali's place; they even prefer Ali to Moham- 
med, or at lea^st esteem them equal; they charge 
the Sunnis with corrupting the Koran and reject 
the Sunnat or Traditions as apocryphal and 
unworthy of credit. (Sale, "Preliminary Dis- 
course, " Sec. VIII.) The central and charac- 
teristic belief of the Shiahs is their faith regard- 
ing the Imam. The Shiahs hold that "the Imam 
is the successor of the Prophet, adorned with all 
the qualities which he possessed, wiser than the 
most learned men of the age, holier than the most 
pious; free from all sin, original and active. His 
authority is the authority of God." His body is 
so pure and delicate as to cast no shadow. He is 
the supreme pontiff, the vicar of God on earth. 
"The Koran, the infallible book, is plussed by 
the Imam, the infallible man." (Sell's "Faith 
of Islam, pp. 76, 78.) 

On this doctrine of the Imam the Shiahs are di- Tne Bab and 
vided into two parties. We speak of them because Benaisim. 
they also serve to explain modern history and the 
movement of Christianity in Asia and Africa. 
The Imamites reckoning Ali as the first, believe 
in twelve Imams, the last of whom, Abul Kasim, 
is still alive, though concealed, and bears the 



214 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

name of Al Mahdi, "the guided." The Ismai- 
lians believe that since the sixth Imam, the Imams 
have been concealed. The Imam is in existence 
now, but concealed. There are always those who 
say, ''Next year the Mahdi will appear." There 
is fine soil in this belief for a crop of disturbances 
and small fanaticisms of which we have not seen 
the last. It explains many things about Moslem 
lands, and makes movements like the Mahdi 
movement in the Soudan and modern Ba^Um— 
intelligible. The founder of Bab ism. Mirza Ali 
Mohammed, the Bab, was the son of a Shiraz 
grocer, born in 1819 or 1820. HI is manifestation 
as a prophet was in 1844 at Bushire. His name 
of Bab, or gate, signified his claim to be the one 
through whom alone knowledge of the twelfth 
Imam Mahdi could be attained. His pretensions 
grew apace and lie soon advanced himself as the 
Mahdi, then as .« Incarnation of the Prophet, 
then as a Revel&cion or Incarnation of God Him- 
self. The Bab was shot at Tabriz in 1850, and 
the Babis, his followers, removed to Bagdad. 
Thence the Turkish Government removed them 
to Constantinople and then to Adrianople in 1866. 
One of them. Mirza Hussein Ali, or Beha, an- 
nounced himself as the Mahdi whom the Bab 
had foretold. This led to a dissension and bloody 
schism, ending in the permanent division of the 
Babis, with two prophets. Beha at Acre, and his 
vounger brother at Cyprus, where the British 
Government pensioned him. The influence of 
Beha prevailed and the Babis became Behais, 



MO HA MME DANISM 215 

The movement is very active in Persia and in 
modified forms has found its way to the West. 
The present head is Abbas Effendi, the son of 
Beha, who is a man of piety and religious ear- 
nestness. 

Behaism represents a revolt against the tyranny 
and fanaticism of the Koran and the laxity 
of Moslem practice, though allowing wine 
drinking and other leniencies. The Bab advo- 
cated also the removal of the veil by women, the 
disestablishment of the harem, and war against 
mendicancy. Doctrinely the Beha movement 
displaces Mohammed and the Koran, and regards 
God as a spiritual essence and not a person. In 
Persia Behaism is a mixture of Mohammedanism, 
Sufiism and Universalism. In the West it takes 
various forms. Mr. Kheiralla was for a time the 
spokesman of the view that Beha was the incar- 
nation of God the Father. (Kheiralla, "Beha 
Ullah, the Glory of God.") Abbas Effendi, 
however, claims to be no more than a man, the 
teacher of the principle of religious unity, and 
those who have visited him at Acre have come 
away with a high regard for him. The utterances 
of Behaism which are making appeal in America 
now are well illustrated by such quotations as 
these from "Hidden Words," published from 
"The Supreme Pen" of Beha, by the Behai 
Publishing Society of Chicago: — 

IN THE NAME OF THE MIGHTY SPEAKER! 

O ye possessors of intelligence and hearing, the first 
melody of the Beloved is : O nightingale of Significance. 



216 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

seek no refuge save in the rose garden of significances! 
O messenger of the Solomon of Love, dwell not but in 
the Sheba of the Beloved! O phoenix of Immortality, 
choose no abode except in the Mount of Faithfulness! 
This is thy station if thou art soaring to the Placeless 
on the wings of Life. 

O PEOPLE OF THE DELECTABLE PARADISE! 
Let the people of Certainly know that a new Garden 
has appeared near the Rizwan in the Open Court of 
Holiness, and that all the people of the Heights, and the 
temples of the Exalted Heaven, arc around it. There- 
fore endeavor to reach that Station, and discover the 
truths of the mystery of Love from its red tulips, and 
unveil abundant knowledge of the Oneness from its 
eternal fruits. Radiant are the eyes of him who has 
entered therein with trust. 

To make any impress upon the Western mind 
Behaism will have to draw much nearer to reality. 
Sufiism and Of the many other developments in Islam, the 

Wahaiusm. two most important were Suliism and Wahabism. 
The former is the mystical reaction from the 
mechanical conception of God. It was, as Dr. 
Shedd savs, "a protest against the exclusiveness 
of Islam, its literalism, its legalism, and the bare 
transcendence of its conception of God. It em- 
phasizes over against these the truth of all reli- 
gions (one God manifesting himself in many 
ways), the mystical interpretation of sacred books, 
the spiritualizing of the law, and even its prac- 
tical abrogation for those who reach a certain 
height of spiritual culture, and the divine in- 
dwelling in the prophets, in the Imams, and even 
in lesser leaders." (Report of Commission IV, 
World Missionary Conference, Ch. V.) 



MOHAMMEDANISM 217 

Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat are the utterances of 
the Persian reaction from this reaction. After 
the fatalism and pantheism of Islam and Sufiism, 
there were left only such sensual pleasures as life 
might hold: — 

There was a door to which I found no key ; 
There was a veil past which I could not see : 

Some little talk of Me and Thee 
There seemed — and then no more of Thee and Me. 
One moment in annihilation's waste, 
One moment, of the well of life to taste — 

The stars are setting and the Caravan 
Starts for the dawn of nothing — oh, make haste ! 
Ah, fill the cup : what boots it to repeat 
How Time is slipping underneath our feet: 
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday, 
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet. 

The Wahabis are Mohammedan Puritans. 
They reject Ijma after the death of the Compan- 
ions of the Prophet, hold to the right of private 
judgment of the Koran and the Traditions, call 
themselves "Unitarians" and denounce all others 
as polytheists, reject all saint worship even at 
Mohammed's tomb at Medina, renounce rosaries 
for the repetition of the ninety-nine names of 
God, and at one time in their history, toward the 
close of the eighteenth century, seemed about to 
subdue and reform the whole Moslem world, 
restoring the order of the primitive days. 
(Hughes, "Dictionary of Islam." Art. "Wahabi," 
pp. 659-662.) Besides these divisions of Islam 
there are many others. Mohammedanism is very 
far, accordingly, from being the unity that is 



218 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

often supposed. "In no part of the world," says 
Palgrave, "is there more of secret division, 
aversion, misbelief (taking Mohammedanism as 
our standard) and unbelief, than in those very 
lands which to a superficial survey seem absolutely 
identified in the one common creed of the Quran 
and its author." (Palgrave, "Arabia," Vol. 1, 
p. 10.) 
Moral Effects These are not the only lamentable moral effects 
of MoKam- of Islam. Religions, like men, must be judged 
medanism. foy their fruits, and the fruits of Mohammedanism 
condemn the tree which bear them. It is some- 
times said that Mohammedanism is unjustly 
judged when tested in this way, that it was a 
great advance upon the conditions which preceded 
it in Arabia, and that for certain races and stages 
of human development it is, if not ideally better 
than Christianity, yet more practically suitable. 
To this it is to be replied, first, that while Mo- 
hammedanism may have improved conditions in 
Arabia, there is room for difference of opinion: 
secondly, that the conditions it introduced, if 
better than those which preceded them, stopped 
any further progress, as they stop it now wherever 
they come to prevail ; and thirdly, that the ethical 
and social ideals of Mohammedanism are inade- 
quate and injurious. 
Dia { t The moral code of Islam and its clean mono- 

Improve theism represented an immense advance on the 

Arabia? conditions prevalent in Arabia when it arose. 

The great vices of the Arabs were revenge, 



MOHAMMEDANISM 219 

drunkenness, gambling, infanticide, polygamy 
and divorce, insecurity of property, and fetish 
worship and idolatry. Mohammed dealt with 
all these, establishing order and justice and se- 
curity, and prohibiting all evils save polygamy, 
which he limited, and divorce. It seems fair to 
accept the traditional view that the conditions 
which he introduced were better than those which 
had prevailed. But the evidence against this 
view is heavy. "Fresnel has shown that the pre- 
Islamic Arabs were on a higher moral plane 
than the Arabs after their conversion of Islam; 
and Perron contrasts the freedom and the legal 
status of woman prior to Mohammed with her 
servile condition under Islam." (Zwemer, "Is- 
lam," p. 3.) As to women's position, also, Rob- 
ertson Smith says, "It is very remarkable that, in 
spite'of Mohammed'shumane ordinances, theplace 
of women in the family, and in society, has steadily 
declined under his law. In ancient Arabia we 
find many proofs that women moved more freely 
and asserted themselves more strongly than in the 
modern East. The Arabs themselves recognized 
that the position of woman had fallen, and it con- 
tinued still to fall under Islam." ("Kinship and 
Marriage in Early Arabia," pp. 100-104.) And 
Sir William Muir says in his Life of Moham- 
med, "I do not hesitate to say that the wife was 
possessed of more freedom and exercised a greater, 
healthier and more legitimate influence under the 
pre-existing institutions of Arabia" than under 



220 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



The Petrify- 
ing Influence 
of Moham- 
medanism. 



Mohammedanism. The relations of Mohammed 
and Khadijah, when Mohammed was only a 
monotheistic Arab in Mecca, were far nobler than 
the Prophet's relations to his ten wives and four 
concubines at Medina. 

Even if the conditions introduced by Islam 
were better for the Arabia of the seventh centurv 
than the conditions it had previously known, the 
weakness and curse of the system lies in its erec- 
tion of these conditions which were imposed 
upon seventh century Arabia into universal and 
eternal institutions. As Stobart says, "While 
forming a correct judgment of the moral condi- 
tion of Arabia at the time when he arose, and 
estimating at their true value the benefits he con- 
ferred, we must not neglect to keep before our 
eyes the clear distinction which exists between 
evil and degrading practices, which are open to 
reform, and an imperfect, if not vicious law, in- 
tended to be the permanent standard of good and 
evil. The former can be successfullv attacked by 
the influence of better example, and will dis- 
appear before a truer and higher civilization; 
but an evil code of ethics, enjoined by the 
national faith, and accepted, by its appeal to a 
divine origin, as the final and irrevocable standard 
of morality, presents an insuperable barrier to 
the regeneration and progress of a nation. Yet 
such is the position which the Koran has taken." 
(Stobart, "Islam and Its Founder," p. 229.) 
Mohammedanism has bound Arabia and it binds 



MOHAMMEDANISM 221 

every Mohammedan people to a political and 
social order and to ethical ideals which, even 
supposing them to have been well adapted to the 
time which originated them, are now fourteen 
centuries out of date. It is this thought which 
prompts Lord Houghton's verse: — 
', So while the world rolls on from change to change, 

And realms of thought expand, 
The Letter stands without expanse or range, 

Stiff as a dead man's hand. 

In consequence, wherever Mohammedanism has 
gone it has advanced the people whom it has 
vanquished to the level of seventh century 
Arabian civilization, but here or a little beyond 
here where races were strong, or a little short of 
here where races were weak, it has left its fol- 
lowers. Further progress has been permanently 
estoppedexcept at the price of infidelity to Islam. 
It has possessed no power of assimilation or 
transformation. (Shedd, ' 'Islam and the Oriental 
Churches," p. 88). 

It is the Mohammedan religion itself that is the 
chief cause of political sterility and degradation. 
It has made and in making has unmade the char- 
acter of good people. "The fact is," says a 
thoughtful writer on Persia, "that Islam has 
ruined Persia; and it is not fair to the real char- 
acter of the people to underrate the effect that 
their religion has produced on them. ' ' (Malcolm, 
"Five Years in a Persian Town," p. 112.) 



222 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



Moham- 
medanism 
Morally 
Defective. 
Polygamy. 



And Islam itself is to be held responsible 
because its ethical and social ideals are inade- 
quate and injurious. The single case of its con- 
ceptions and legislation with regard to woman 
will suffice for illustration. It allowed limited 
polygamy, unlimited concubinage, and practically 
unlimited divorce. These are the provisions of 
the Koran : — 

And if ye fear that ye shall not act with equity 
towards orphans of the female sex. take in marriage of 
such other women as please you, two, or three, or 
four, and not more. But if ye fear that ye cannot act 
equitably towards so many, marry one only, or the 
slaves which ye shall have acquired. 

And who abstain from the carnal knowledge of 
women other than their wives, or the slaves which their 
right hands possess (for as to them they shall be blame- 
less ; but whoever coveteth any women besides these, 
they are transgressors.) 

Ye may divorce your wives twice; and then either 
retain them with humanity, or dismiss them with 
kindness. But it is not lawful for you to take away 
anything of what ye have given them, unless both fear 
that they cannot observe the ordinances of God. And 
if ye fear that they cannot observe the ordinances of 
God, it shall be no crime in either of them on account 
of that for which the wife shall redeem herself. These 
are the ordinances of God; therefore transgress them 
not; for whoever transgresseth the ordinances of God, 
they are unjust doers. But if the husband divorce her a 
third time, she shall not be lawful for him again, until 
she marry another husband. But if he also divorce her, 
it shall be no crime in them, if they return to each 
other, if they think they can observe the ordinances of 
God; and these are the ordinances o"f God, he declareth 
them to people of understanding. 



MOHAMMEDANISM 223 

Ameer Ali, Syed, represents the modern atti- 
tude of Moslem thought toward these pro- 
visions: — 

Women, to whom most of the older systems assigned 
a very inferior position in relation to the stronger sex, 
obtained in Islam the place God meant them to occupy 
in the economy of creation. The right of possessing 
property, of dealing with what was their own, of exer- 
cising all the privileges and powers which belonged to 
them as sentient beings, were accorded to them equally 
with the other sex. Marriage made no difference in 
their status or capacity. And a Mussulman wife became 
as competent to hold property and make dispositions 
as a single woman. Nor were they denied a share in 
the patrimony of their parents or kinsfolk in favor of 
their male relations. Marriage was declared "to be an 
institution ordained for the protection of society, and 
in order that human beings may guard themselves from 
foulness and unchastity." 

Polygamy was recognized as lawful among all the 
nations of antiquity ; and its practice had received the 
sanction of the holy personages of Judaism. As among 
the Kulin Brahmins, the Pagan Arabs put no limit on 
the number of wives a man might have. In certain 
stages of development polygamy is not an evil. The 
Arabian Prophet, with a true conception of the social 
and moral conditions and necessities of the age and the 
people, dealt with the question in a manner which har- 
monizes with the most advanced standard, and at the 
same time meets the needs and requirements of the least 
progressed. 

A Mussulman is allowed to marry one, two, three or 
four wives, provided he can deal with all of them "with 
equity." If that be not possible he can marry but one. 

Many of the best minds of Islam have perceived in 
this rule a virtual prohibition of polygamy. The moral 
effect of the institution on Mussulman society as a whole 



224 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

can hardly be ignored ; it has prevented the growth in 
Mussulman countries, untainted by foreign social ideas, 
of that class whose existence is alike an outrage on our 
humanity and a disgrace to civilization. Considering 
how the profession of the hetairai, honored among 
some nations, despised among others, but tolerated by 
most, has flourished through all ages, it is no small 
credit to the Arabian Teacher that it was so effectually 
stopped in Islam. 

As in the Jewish system, option was given to the 
husband to dissolve tbe marriage tie. At the same 
time, the act was pronounced to be "the most abom- 
inable in the sight of the Lord." (Ameer Ali, Syed, 
"Islam," pp. 29-31.) 

On the other hand must be set the terrible facts 
of the actual conditions prevalent under Islam. 
There is prostitution there as we know it in the 
West, and the whole lot of woman is, though with 
many noble and worthy exceptions, a degraded 
lot. Of polygamy Sir William Muir says: — 

Polygamy, with the barbarous institution of servile 
concubinage, is the worm at the root of Islam — the 
secret of its decadence. By it the purity and virtue of 
the family tie are touched; the tone and vigor of the 
dominant classes are sapped; the body politic becomes 
weak and languid, excepting for intrigue; and the state 
itself too often crumbles to pieces, the prey of a doubt- 
ful and contested succession. Offspring born by the 
slave to her proper lord and master is legitimate, and, 
as such, shares in the inheritance; but the provision, 
praiseworthy in itself, affords but an additional ground 
for division in the house. 

Of concubinage Stanley Lane Poole testifies: — 
It is not so much in the matter of wives as in that of 
concubines that Mohammed made an irretrievable mis- 
take. The condition of the female slave in the East is 



MOHAMMEDANISM 225 

indeed deplorable. She is at the entire mercy of her 
master, who can do what he pleases with her and her 
companions ; for the Moslem is not restricted in the 
number of his concubines, as he is in that of his wives. 
The female white slave is kept solely for the master's 
sensual gratification, and is sold when he is tired of her, 
and so she passes from master to master, a very wreck 
of womanhood. Her condition is a little improved if 
she bear a son to her tyrant ; but even then he is at 
liberty to refuse to acknowledge the child as his own, 
though it must be owned he seldom does this. Kind as 
the Prophet was himself towards bondswomen, one 
cannot forget the unutterable brutalities which he 
suffered his followers to inflict upon conquered nations 
in the taking of slaves. The Moslem soldier was 
allowed to do as he pleased with any "infidel" woman 
he might meet with in his victorious march. When one 
thinks of the thousands of women, mothers and 
daughters, who must have suffered shame and dishonor 
by this license, he cannot find words to express his 
horror. And this cruel indulgence has left its mark on 
the Moslem character, nay, on the whole character of 
Eastern life. 

And of the seclusion of women Keene, in "The 
Turks in India," says: — 

All Zenana life must be bad for men at all stages of 
their existence. In youth, it must be ruin to be petted 
and spoiled by a company of submissive slave girls. In • 
manhood, it is no less an evil that when a man enters 
into private life, his affections should be put up to 
auction among foolish, fond competitors, full of mutual 
jealousies and slanders. We are not left entirely to 
conjecture as to the effect of female influence in home 
life, when it is exerted under those unenlightened and 
demoralizing conditions. That is, plainly, an element 
lying at the root of all the most important features that 
differentiate progress from stagnation. 



226 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



Divorce. But worst of all, perhaps, in its actual effects, 

is the liberty of divorce. Most Moslems are too 
poor to have more than one wife at a time, but 
the facility of divorce has made consecutive 
polygamy so easy and common that it, rather 
than honorable monogamy, sets the tone to Moslem 
life. Hasan, the son of Ali, was called the 
Divorcer because he divorced his wives seventy 
times. There are theoretical safeguards around 
the right of divorce, but they are ineffectual. 
The Moslem ideal of woman is inadequate and 
injurious. 

Intolerance. This i 1 1 ust rat i on would suffice, but we must 

add to it the Moslem ideal of tolerance and free- 
dom. Islam has devised working arrangements 
which have made life under Mohammedanism 
endurable, but barely endurable for non-Moslem 
peoples. The idea of religious equality before 
the law is alien to the system. (Shedd, "Islam 
and the - Oriental Churches, " pp. 134-137.) It 
offered men Islam or tribute or death. It started 
outJ:o convert the world and to do it by force. It 
is true that at the beginning, when it was weak 
and Mohammed was still the religious teacher 
rather than the political chief, the note of tol- 
erance was in Islam, as the early chapters of the 
Koran indicate: — 

Let there be no compulsion in religion. 

Verily they who believe (Moslems) and they who 

follow the Jewish religion and the Christians and the 

Sabians — whosoever of these believeth in God and the 

last day and doeth that which is right, shall have their 



MOHAMMEDANISM 227 

reward with their Lord : fear shall not come upon them, 
neither shall they be grieved. 

Dispute not, unless in kindliest sort, with the people 
of the Book (Christians). 

But as success came and power grew, a differ- 
ent tone came into Islam. New revelations in the 
Koran abrogated the earlier ones. 

Whoso desireth any other religion than Islam it shall 
not be accepted of him and in the next world he shall 
be of those who perish. 

O ye who believe, take not the Jews and Christians 
as your friends. 

And when the months wherein ye are not allowed to 
attack them shall be past, kill the idolaters wheresoever 
ye shall find them, and take them prisoners, and besiege 
them, and lay wait for them in every convenient place. 
But if they shall repent, and observe the appointed 
times of prayer, and pay the legal alms, dismiss them 
freely ; for God is gracious and merciful. 

O prophet, wage war against the unbelievers and the 
hypocrites, and be severe unto them, for their dwelling 
shall be hell ; an unhappy journey shall it be thither. 

When ye encounter the unbelievers, strike off their 
heads, until ye have made a great slaughter among 
them ; and bind them in bonds : and either give them a 
free dismission afterwards or exact a ransom ; until the 
war shall have laid down its arms. 

Whatever abatements need to be made from the 
severity of these passages in judging the actual 
attitude of Islam, it remains true that it has been 
and is the most intolerant of all religions. It is 
the one religion with which apostacy has meant 
and still means death, wherever the power is in 
its hands. It cannot allow, save under coercion 
from without, the freedom that is essential to 



228 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

faith. As a high Turkish official told Dr. Barton 
in reply to the question, "How about liberty for 
the Mohammedan to become a Christian?" — 
"That is an impossibility in the nature of the 
case. When one has once accepted Islam and 
become a follower of the Prophet he cannot 
change. There is no power on earth that can 
change him. Whatever he may say or claim 
cannot alter the fact that he is a Moslem still and 
must always be such. It is, therefore, an absurd- 
ity to sav that a Moslem has the privilege of 
changing his religion, for to do so is beyond his 
power." (Barton, "Daybreak in Turkey," p. 
256 f.) 
Otter There are radical defects in the ethical and 

Defects. social principles of Islam. The taint of pagan- 

ism which was in the system dowered it with the 
law of social unprogression. There was no con- 
ception in it of the permanency of the moral law. 
(Malcolm, "Five Years in a Persian Town," p. 
82.) The Prophet's whole idea of revelation 
was arbitrary and non-ethical. God was strong. 
His will was above His goodness. Love did not 
rule His will. It was enough that He willed. 
The want of a consuming sense of holiness in God 
left ethics without the sense of sin. In the 
Mishkat we are told: — 

The Prophet said, "Verily a certain servant (of God) 
committed a grievous sin and said, O my Lord, I have 
sinned ; forgive it. His Lord said, Doth my servant 
know that he hatha Lord who forgives the sins and also 
punishes. I have forgiven my servant. Afterwards 



MOHAMMEDANISM 229 

he delayed as God wished, and then again he sinned 
a grievous sin and said, O my Lord, I have sinned 
grievously ; forgive it. He said, Doth my servant know 
that he hath a Lord who forgives the sins and also 
punishes ; I have forgiven my servant. Then he delayed 
as God wished and again sinned grievously and said, O 
Lord, I have sinned grievously again ; forgive it for me. 
Then He said, Doth my servant know that he hath a 
Lord who forgives the sins and punishes them ; I have 
forgiven my servant ; therefore let him do what he 
likes!" 

Here, then, we are brought face to face with Contrast 
the contrasts between Islam and Christianity. Between 
The fundamental contrast is in their conception ^ 3 ^ m anc * 
of God. Mohammed saw and emphasized a few ris iam y ' 
of the true attributes of God, but his God was a 
ruler, a sovereign, not a Father. His religion, 
accordingly, made no provision for the soul's 
need of fellowship with God. (Grant, "Reli- 
gions of the World, " p. 30.) He did not realize 
the holiness of God. The whole conception of 
ethical character was strange to him. There was 
in him, accordingly, none of the moral splendor, 
the ethical righteousness of the Hebrew prophets, 
far less of the apostles of Christianity. The 
Mohammedan idea of God, moreover, really 
separated him from man and the world. That 
was why on one hand Sufiism arose to satisfy 
with its pantheism the hunger of the soul for God, 
and on the other hand it accounted for Moslem 
agnosticism and the cynical atheism of Omar 
Khayyam, This ideal of God, furthermore ? made 



230 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

the conceptions of incarnation and atonement 
impossible in Islam. ("Religions of the Mission 
Fields," "Mohammedanism," p. 256 f. ) The 
new religion did proclaim a real brotherhood and 
the noble equalities of Mohammedanism have been 
a great reality and are a great reproach to the caste 
spirit, whether in Hinduism or in Christian 
society. But Islam knew no real human brother- 
hood. It was a fellowship in Islam, which 
utterly denied the truth of human unity, of one 
common world family of God. Two prayers 
illustrate the fundamental difference between 
Moslems and Christians at this point: — 

Prayer of Christians for Moslems, used on Good 
Friday at Church: "O merciful God, have mercy 
on all Mohammedans, and take from them all 
ignorance, hardness of heart and contempt of Thy 
Word ; and fetch them home, blessed Lord, to Thy 
flock that they may be saved among the remnant of 
the true Israelites. and be made one fold under one 
Shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." 

Prayer of Moslems for Christians, used every 
Friday in the Mosques: "God, make their wives 
widows and their children orphans, and give their 
possessions to be a possession of the followers of 
Islam. Amen." 

Mohammedanism was and is a religion of pre- 
cepts and precedents, and not of living principles. 
Its conception of all revelation is mechanical. 
("Methods of Mission Work Among Moslems," 
p. 196 f.) Christ refused to bind men with 



MOHAMMEDANISM 231 

prescriptions. His method was to give men 
principles which they were to apply, to pour a 
new life into their veins which would make them 
sons of God and lead them to render to Him and 
to their brothers the service of sons and not of 
slaves. Here alone we find an adequate and ever 
separating contrast between the two religions: — 

While as the life blood fills the growing form, 

The Spirit Christ has shed 
Flows through the ripening ages fresh and warm, 

More felt than heard or read. 

And, therefore, 'though ancestral sympathies, 

And closest ties of race, 
May guard Mohammed's precepts and decrees 

Through many a tract of space ; 

Yet in the end the tight-drawn line must break, 

The sapless tree must fall, 
Nor let the form one time did well to take 

Be tyrant over all. 

The whole wonderful contrast appears when 
we set Mohammed over against Christ and lay 
down the religion which centers in Christ upon 
Islam. As Mr. Bosworth Smith declares, who is 
saying the best that can be said for Moham- 
medanism: — 

The religion of Christ contains whole fields of 
morality and whole realms of thought which are all but 
outside the religion of Mohammed. It opens humility, 
purity of heart, forgiveness of injuries, sacrifice of self 
to man's moral nature; it gives scope for toleration, 
development, boundless progress to his mind ; its motive 
power is stronger, even as a friend is better than a king, 
and love higher than obedience- Its realized ideals in 



232 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

the various paths of human greatness have been more 
commanding, more many-sided, more holy, as Averroes 
is below Newton, Harun below Alfred, and AH below 
St. Paul. Finally, the ideal life of all is far more 
elevating, far more majestic, far more inspiring, even 
as the life of the founder of Mohammedanism is below 
the life of the Founder of Christianity. And when I 
speak of the ideal life of Mohammedanism I must not 
be misunderstood. There is in Mohammedanism no 
ideal life in the true sense of the word, for Moham- 
med's character was admitted by himself to be a weak 
and erring one. It was disfigured by at least one huge 
moral blemish; and exactly in so far as his life has, 
in spite of his earnest and reiterated protestations, been 
made an example to be followed, has that vice been 
perpetuated. But in Christianity the case is different. 
The word-, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" 
forced from the mouth of Him who was meek and 
lowly of heart, by the wickedness of those who, priding 
themselves on being Abraham's children, never did the 
works of Abraham, are a definite challenge to the 
world. That challenge has been for nineteen centuries 
before the eyes of unfriendly, as well as of believing 
readers, and it has never yet been fairly met ; and at 
this moment, by the confession of friend and foe alike, 
the character of Jesus of Nazareth stands alone in its 
spotless puritv and its unapproachable majesty. We 
have each of us probably at some period of our lives 
tried hard to penetrate to the inmost meaning of some 
one of Christ's short and weighty utterances, — 
"Those jewels, five words long, 

Which on the stretched forefinger of all time 

Sparkle forever." 

But is there one of us who can say there is no more 

behind? Is there one thoughtful person among us who 

has ever studied the character of Christ, and has not, 

in spite of ever-recurring difficulties and doubts, once 



MOHAMMEDANISM 233 

and again burst into the centurion's exclamation, 
"Truly this was the Son of God"? 

Nor are the methods of drawing near to God the 
same in the two religions. The Mussulman gains a 
knowledge of God — he can hardly be said to approach 
Him — by listening to the lofty message of God's 
Prophet. The Christian believes that he approaches 
God by a process which, however difficult it may be to 
define, yet has had a real meaning to Christ's servants, 
and has embodied itself in countless types of Christian 
character — that mysterious something which St. Paul 
calls a "union with Christ." "Ye are dead, and your 
life is hid with Christ in God." (Smith, "Mohammed 
and Mohammedanism," pp. 247-249.) 

But if Mohammedanism and Christianity are Points of 
thus widely separated, they have also more points Contact, 
of contact than any other religions. Mohammed 
speaks of the Bible and of Christ, of the Jewish 
inheritance and of the Christian faith. His reli- 
gion supersedes all these, but nevertheless it 
rests upon them, and the three features of its 
relationship to Christianity afford our chief 
points of contrast and difficulty, but also our 
chief points of contact and hope. "(&) Islam 
recognizes the genuineness of the Christian 
revelation, (b) Islam assumes a definite position 
with reference to Christianity, (c) Islam contains 
in its very foundation a misrepresentation of 
Christianity." 

(a) The Koran endorses the revelation of the 
Old and New Testaments. To be sure, it de- 
clares that these Scriptures have been corrupted, 
and that we do not now have the original and 



234 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

reliable books. But here is one common meeting 
place. 

(b) And Mohammed "raised and answered the 
claim of Christ. He assigned to Him His place 
and titles, one of the greatest prophets, the Spirit 
of God and the Word of God. He claimed that 
there had been but one true faith from the be- 
ginning preached by all the great prophets, one 
in essence though differing in form. But he 
denied to Christ the title of the Son of God, and 
with this denial placed Him on a level with 
Abraham and Moses and Mohammed himself. 
He also denied to Christianity the claim to be the 
final religion. This assumption of a definite 
position is a chief reason why Mohammedanism 
has been the hardest of all faiths to dislodge. It 
is a common law of human nature that it is diffi- 
cult to induce men to reconsider a position once 
assumed. In this case the difficulty is increased 
by the fact that apparently so much is conceded. 
Every true Moslem is ready to yield to Christ 
high honor and to ascribe to Him lofty titles, and 
this is a great obstacle to giving the complete 
allegiance which Christ demands." ("Methods 
of Mission Work Among Moslems," p. 195.) 
The Moslems assert the Virgin birth of Christ 
and His entire and unique sinlessness, which 
Mohammed never claimed for himself; they deny 
the crucifixion and resurrection, but affirm the 
ascension of Christ into heaven, and they believe 
in His second coming, but only to prepare for a 



MOHAMMEDANISM 235 

great Mohammedan revival. And the Koran 
itself calls Him both the Spirit of God and the 
Word of God. (Goldsack, " Christ in Islam.") 
Mohammedans admit all this, and here we have 
another common meeting ground. Must they not 
some day see that they must admit more regard- 
ing Jesus, the one sinless Prophet of Islam? 

(c) i\nd in the third place, the view of Chris- 
tianity which lies at the base of Islam, and which 
led Mohammed to repudiate it, was a false view. 
He had never met the Christianity of Christ and 
the Apostles. The Koran shows what a travesty 
of the Gospel had come to him. The Trinity 
which he rejected was a trinity consisting of the 
Father, the Son and the Virgin Mary. When 
"we inquire into Mohammed's rejection of 
Christianity, we find that he never had anything 
but the most perverted idea of what Christianity 
really was. The Christianity which he rejected 
was of a very debased type, half polytheistic in 
its theology, superstitious in its worship, and 
with a sacred history encrusted with puerile 
legends. He had evidently never read the New 
Testament, and his conception of Christ is 
largely derived from the Apocryphal Gospels. 
It is not, therefore, historically just to say that 
Mohammed rejected Christ. Supposing that 
to-day there were to arise a great religious genius 
among the peoples of the Congo; suppose that 
all he knew of Jesus Christ was what he could 
learn from those representatives of His who con- 



236 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

doned the policy of King Leopold, would it be 
just to say of the religion that he founded that it 
rejected Christianity? Nor can we say that this 
is a matter of mere historical interest. Our 
judgment on the point must inevitably condition 
our whole attitude to the religion. For in truth 
the Moslem rejection of Christianity to-day rests 
upon that fatal understanding of what Christianity 
is which is revealed in the Koran. From this it 
follows that all the forces of modern historical 
science and criticism are fighting for us, for they 
arc fighting Eor the removal of that ignorance. 
The impact of the modern world upon Islam 
must sooner or later break up that age-long 
delusion. We cannot, of course, maintain that 
there are not within Islam powerful forces of evil 
which are entrenched behind this misunderstand- 
ing, and which will remain when it has been 
destroyed. Still, here is the vulnerable point, — a 
point which is not found in other religions. 
Meantime it remains tragically true that had the 
Church of Syria been faithful to its Master the 
reproach of Islam had never lain upon Christen- 
dom. The thought has sombre consequences. It 
may be that in the Africa, the China, and the 
India of to-day new religions are maturing which 
inlike manner will be 'anti-Christian,' and stand 
in future centuries a barrier in the way of the 
winning of the world." (Report of Commission 
IV, World Missionary Conference, Ch. VII.) 

Here is the revelation of our duty — to correct 
in love and penitence the misrepresentation of 



MOHAMMEDANISM 237 

Christianity made to Arabia fourteen hundred 
years ago, and to represent Christianity in truth 
to the eager, searching, fast changing mind of the 
non-Christian peoples of to-day. 

But can we ever hope to recover what was Will 
lost? Is Islam to abide in the world as the per- Christianity 
manent reproach of a false Christianity ? Let two Ever Prevail? 
parables answer. 

The first is a story narrated recently by a col- 
onel in the Turkish army: — 

A thoughtful Turk, some thirty years ago, studied 
with a holy teacher of great learning in the city of 
Adana. After his course of training, he was sent by 
his teacher to Aintab to labor there. He found the 
place hard and the ignorant people dead to higher 
things. In considerable discouragement he returned to 
Adana to the presence of his venerable teacher. He 
related his difficulties and told how dead the city was, 
and ended with the statement, "Aintaby diriltmek Haz- 
ret-i-Isya makhsonssdyr" — "Only Jesus Himself can 
bring Aintab to life." The reply of his teacher was, 
"You must go back to Aintab, and there yoti must be a 
Jesus." He came, and has recalled the tens of thou- 
sands to a living practice of the glorious faith of Islam. 

The second is the well known incident in the 
Moslem conquest of Damascus. When Khalid 
took the city in 635, after a prolonged siege: — 

One half of the wealth of the city passed to the con- 
querors, and a tax was levied on the inhabitants who 
did not become Moslems. The churches were divided, 
one-half being given to Moslems and the other half being 
left to the Christians. The Cathedral was arranged in 
two parts. In one Christian worship was still carried 
on, in the other that of Islam was conducted. This 



238 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

curious arrangement was continued for about fifty 
years, when the Christian Congregation was ejected and 
the whole building was used for Mohammedan worship. 
All that was specially Christian in the ornaments and 
decoration of the church was now removed; but over 
the lintel of a door, long since closed, words, which still 
remain, were left untouched, a silent prophecy of what 
Damascus will vet see. The verse is taken from the 
Septuagint version of Psalm cxlv. 13, with the addition 
of the words "O Christ." It reads thus: "Thy King- 
dom, O Christ, is a kingdom of all ages; and thy do- 
minion is from generation to generation." For twelve 
centuries and more the sound of Christian worship has 
not been heard in what was once the Cathedral of St. 
John the Baptist. (Sell, "The Four Rightly Guided 
Khalifas," p. 20 f.) 

But on its walls still stands the ancient and 
prophetic word. 

BIBLE READING 

Tenth chapter of Romans. 



QUESTIONS 

What have been the varying estimates of Moham- 
med's character? 

What is the difference between Mohammed's place 
in Mohammedanism and Christ's place in Christianity? 

Give some account of the life of Mohammed. 

Did his character change after reaching Medina and 
attaining success? 

Did Mohammed use violence, and has Mohammedan- 
ism relied on the sword or profited by the use of force? 

What is your judgment of Mohammed's character 
and influence? Was he a prophet? 




Syria — Mohammedans at Prayer 



MOHAMMEDANISM 239 

What are the foundations of Islam? Wherein is the 
Moslem idea of the Koran different from the Christian 
idea of the Bible? 

What are the merits and defects of the Moslem idea 
of God ? 

What are the other main doctrines of Islam? Are 
they Christian? Describe the five practical duties of 
Islam. 

Give some account of the spread of Mohammedan- 
ism. How far does it now extend in the world? 

Give some account of its schisms, and especially of 
Behaism and Sufiism. 

What have been the moral, social and political effects 
of Mohammedanism? 

What have been its greatest defects? 

Point out the points of contrast and contact between 
Mohammedanism and Christianity. 

SELECTED REFERENCE BOOKS 

Dods, "Mohammed, Buddha and Christ," Hodder &T 
Stoughton, 1893. 

Stobart, "Islam and its Founder," Society for Pro- 
moting Christian Knowledge, 1877. 

Muir, "The Life of Mahomet," Smith, Elder & Co., 
1877. 

Margoliouth, "Mohammed," Putnam & Son, 1905. 

Sale, "The Koran," Warne & Co., 1891. W 

Sell, "The Faith of Islam," Trubner & Co., 1896. 

Zwemer, "Islam, a Challenge to Faith," Student Vol- 
unteer Movement, 1907. 

Gairdner, "The Reproach of Islam," British Young 
People's Missionary Movement, 1909. 

Haines, "Islam as a Missionary Religion," Society for 
Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1889. 

Smith, "Mohammed and Mohammedanism," J. Mur- 
ray, 1889. 



240 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Ameer Ali, Syed, "Islam," Archibald Constable & Co., 

1906. 
Shedd, "Islam and the Oriental Churches," Westminster 

Press, 1904. 
Wherry, "Islam and Christianity in the Far East," 

Revell, 1907. 
Malcolm, "Five Years in a Persian Town," E. P. 

Dutton & Co., 1905. 
Rice, "Crusaders of the Twentieth Century," Church 

Missionary Society, 1910. 
Macdonald, "Religious Life and Attitude in Islam," 

Chicago University Press, 1909. 
Van Sommer and Zwemer, "Our Moslem Sisters," 

Revell, 1907. 



CHAPTER V 

WHAT THE CHRISTIANS OF ASIA THINK 
OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS 



CHAPTER V 

WHAT THE CHRISTIANS OF ASIA THINK OF THE 
NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS 

There are no men whose estimate of the non- ^ ^ e j uc jg ment 
Christian religions and whose judgment on the of Most 
questions involved in comparative religion are of Value on 
more interest than the Christian men of Asia. Comparative 
Many of them grew up in the older religions, or 
in Islam, and after comparing their religions with 
Christianity, not in any mere academic way, but 
as a matter of life and death, came over into the 
Christian faith. That change involved sacrifices 
which only the most careful consideration and the 
surest convictions on the issues involved could 
support. It is true that the judgments of men 
who have passed through such a radical expe- 
rience are likely to be fearless and direct with 
regard to those things which they have found 
inadequate or untrue. But any qualifications on 
account of their severity toward rejected positions 
which may need to be made, are not as great as 
the qualifications called for in our consideration 
of the results of the theoretical study of compara- 
tive religion by Western scholars, who have 
lacked the contact with reality possessed by the 
Christians of Asia. When all things have been 



244 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

taken into consideration, it remains true that no 
opinions regarding the non-Christian religions 
are more significant than those of the men who 
have personally known both these religions and 
Christianity, and in their own life and experience 
have fairly and honestly compared them. 

And even where the Christians of Asia have 
not come out from the non-Christian religions, 
but have grown up in the Christian Church in 
the second, third or fourth generation of the new 
churches which are rising wjth accelerating 
rapidity all over Asia, their judgment is valuable 
and interesting. They see the non-Christian 
religions at first hand, in their actual fruitage as 
well as in their ancient philosophy. They are 
obliged to maintain their faith and to propagate 
it, not in an atmosphere predominantly or nom- 
inally Christian, but in the face of shrewd dis- 
putations, or solid inertia, or critical scrutiny 
both of profession and practice. What they 
believe about Christianity they must be able to 
vindicate against all that their neighbors of other 
religions can say and are saying daily to them, 
and what they believe about the other religions 
they believe not because some one tells it to them 
or they read it in books, but because they see it 
and hear it daily. The problem of comparative 
religion to them is not a problem for detached 
occasional study. So far as the Christian spirit 
is eager and alive in them, the questions raised 
in the comparison of religions are their daily 
breath. 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 245 

Accordingly, as bearing on the question of the Testimony 
true character of the non-Christian religions and Sought, 
of the relation of Christianity to these religions, 
a series of questions was sent by the writer to 
some of the leading Christian men in Asia. The 
questions which were asked included the 
following: — 

1. Are the non-Christian religions or faiths 
really "religions" or "faiths" in the same sense 
in which these words are applied to Christianity? 

2. What are the radical and essential differences 
between Christianity and the non-Christian 
religions? 

3. How should Christianity be presented to the 
non-Christian peoples? 

4. Should the emphasis be laid upon the points 
which Christianity has in common with the non- 
Christian religions, or should these be made 
merely the starting point in the effort to show 
what Christianity alone offers? 

5. Are the elements which Christianity has in 
common with other religions as numerous and 
extensive as is sometimes supposed, or are there 
fundamental differences of principle which makes 
these points of contact apparent rather than real? 

6. What should be the proper attitude of Chris- 
tian preachers and teachers and of organized 
Christianity in Asia to the non-Christian reli- 
gions ? 

7. How far has Christianity as yet actually 
touched the life and thought of any Asiatic land? 



246 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Mr. Meredith Townsend, in "Asia and Europe," 
holds that Asia seems condemned by some fiat of 
arrest; that while capable of being moved by self- 
generated ideas, she seems to be inaccessible to 
new forces from without ; that "something radical, 
something unalterable and indestructible divides 
the Asiatic from the European. . . . They are 
fenced off from each other by an invisible, 
impalpable but impassable wall," ("Asia and 
Europe," pp. 36, 50, 150), and that Christianity 
cannot hope, accordingly, to displace the non- 
Christian religions and to penetrate the life of the 
non-Christian world. What do you think of this 
view ? 

8. Is there such a racial chasm between the 
East and the West, or is the common talk about 
such a chasm groundless? Are there not many 
Orientals and Occidentals who understand each 
other, and who have more in common than either 
Orientals or Occidentals have among themselves? 

9. Is the Christianity, not of the Church nor 
of the West, but of the New Testament, the final 
and absolute religion for man, or is it to be 
modified by contact with the non-Christian 
religions? 

Competent Answers to these questions were received from 

Witnesses. Japan from Bishop Honda of the Methodist 

Church, President K. Ibuka of the Meiji Gakuin, 

Mr. Kozaki, ex-president of the Doshisha, Mr. 

Ebina, one of the ablest leaders of the "advanced" 



. ASIA 1 S O WN OPINION 247 

school, Mr. Uemura, editor of the "Fukuin 
Shimpo, " president of a Japanese theological 
school and one of the leading preachers in Japan, 
and Justice Watanabe, head of the judiciary in 
Korea; from Korea from Dr. Philip Jaisohn, one' 
of the early Christian leaders there, now resident 
in the United States, and from Pastor S. C. Kil 
of Pyeng Yang; from China from two pastors in 
Che-Kiang Province, and from Mr. Tsen, one of 
Bishop Root's trusted clergy at Gan King; from 
India from Prof. N. C. Mukerji of Allahabad, 
formerly a Brahman and one of the most thought- 
ful Christian men in northern India, and from 
Professor Siraj ud Din of Lahore, a prominent 
convert from Mohammedanism. It would have 
been easy to increase the list, but these men were 
notably representative. 

It will suffice simply to present the views of 
these correspondents, prefixing the name and 
country of each, and supplementing their views 
on one or two points by the addition of several 
opinions from Christians in India who have come 
over from Islam. 

1. Are the non-Christian religions or faiths Are the non- 
really "religions" or "faiths" in the same sense Christian 
in which these words are applied to Christianity? R e h^ ons 

Kozaki, Japan: — 

If by religion is meant a personal relationship be- 
tween God and man, the non-Christian religions of 
Japan are not religions in the same sense as Christianity. 



Religions ? 



248 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Ibtika, Japan: — 

It all depends upon the definition of the term reli- 
gion. If by religion is meant, as it is very often done, 
the communion of man with God, or the selt-surrender 
of the soul to God, that would exclude Buddhism, be- 
cause Buddhism has no God. But in the broader sense 
of the term. Buddhism is a religion as well as Islam or 
Christianity. But if you mean by it the true or abso- 
lute form of religion, the term could be applied only to 
Christianity. 

Honda, Japan: — 

Confucianism can hardly be described as a religion at 
all. Shintoism and Buddhism are not theistic ; and 
while Shintoists and Buddhists offer prayers, they have 
little or no sense of moral responsibility to the objects 
of their worship. 

Jaisohn, Korea: — 

The eastern part of Asia has really no religion in the 
same sense in which the word is used with Christianity. 
The upper or educated class profess Confucianism, which 
is really a moral philosophy rather than a religion. 
The uneducated believe in superstitions of various forms, 
which can hardly be called religions. 

Kil, Korea: — 

You can call them "teachings" (kyo), but not "Way 
or Road" (To). A "teaching" has no power to 

change men's minds. 

Tsen, China: — 

In the Eastern countries religion really means teach- 
ing, and worship is of a later growth, or a corruption 
or adaptation from the natural or popular religious 
practices. Faith, in ethnic religions, is no more than a 
philosophical idea, and not a statement of facts based 
on divine revelation or trust in the Divine. 

Che-Kiang- Pastors, China: — 

The "world religions" are not religions in the true 
sense, and are only useful for the present life, for they 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 240 

come from men. The teachings of Jesus are from 
heaven, and how can they be just the same as human 
teachings? 

While the world religions are religious, they lack the 
reality of the salvation of Jesus. 

Muker ji, India: — 

In India to-day religion — I am speaking of Hindus 
particularly — is largely ceremonialism, and the spiritual 
intuitions of the people are in a dormant state and have 
to be developed to make religion a personal relationship 
with a living Creator. The philosophic system supply 
its votaries with a species of religious culture which 
cannot meet the above description of religion. The 
nearest approach to religion in the Christian sense is 
made, in Hinduism, by its Bhakti. 

Siraj ud Din, India: — 

(a) The other two Semitic Religions or Faiths, viz., 
the Jewish and the Mohammedan, are religions or faiths 
more or less in the same sense as Christianity. 

(b) But the non-Semitic religions are not : (1) The 
Semitic religions present God as a personal God, where- 
as the non-Semitic religions present God, if at all, as an 
immanent, pervading spirit. (2) The element of Faith 
is foremost in the Christian religion and also more or 
less in Judaism and Mohammedanism, but in the non- 
Semitic religions it is quite secondary. 

2. What are the radical and essential differ- Christianity 
ences between Christianity and the non-Christian Radically 

religions? Unlike Otter 

-T7- i • T Religions. 

Kozaki, Japan: — 

The radical and essential differences between Chris- 
tianity and the non-Christian religions of Japan are 
these : — 

1. In a sense it may be said that the non-Christian 
religions have in them certain elements which may be 



250 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

regarded as coming from God ; but in Christianity God 
reveals Himself with a clearness, a fullness and a 
directness which makes it quite unique. The old dis- 
tinction often made is true: in Christianity, God is seek- 
ing men; in the non-Christian religions, man is seeking 
God. 

2. In the non-Christian religions, the truths as to 
God, man and immortality are only dimly perceived and 
set forth; in Christianity they are "brought to light." 

3. While the word salvation is used by both Shin- 
toists and Buddhists, what is meant is very different 
from what is meant by it as it is used by Christians. In 
Christianity, salvation means deliverance from sin and 
its consequences and all that flows from fellowship with 
God in Christ. In Shintoism, salvation means chiefly 
deliverance from the power of evil spirits; and in Bud- 
dhism, deliverance from the ills supposedly inherent in 
conscious existence. This will serve also to illustrate 
the care to be taken not to be misled by the use of 
words; and the same caution is applicable to isolated 
passages in Shinto and Buddhist writings. 

4. Christianity meets both the religious and the 
ethical needs of man; and it does so perfectly. The 
non-Christian religions of Japan meet those needs very 
imperfectly, and it is a significant fact that each may be 
said in general to occupy a field of its own. I write 
very briefly, but in brief this is true. Shintoism as a 
religion has to do with the supernatural chiefly in its 
relations to the things of this life. Accordingly, when 
a child is born it is taken to a Shinto temple (never to a 
Buddhist one) and is committed for protection and 
guidance in life to a Shinto god. Buddhism, on the 
other hand, has to do chiefly with the future, with exist- 
ence beyond the grave. That is why the Buddhist 
temples are so generally frequented by the old. They 
visit them in preparation for death; to pray for salva- 
tion (the salvation of Buddhism) in the future. (It is 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 251 

only since 1873, when the government separated Shin- 
toism and Buddhism as religions, that funerals have 
been conducted by Shinto priests.) Confucianism, as 
you know, confines itself to rules for individual and social 
conduct ; and as to the supernatural, is purely agnostic. 
Under the Tokugawa regime, this fact (that Shintoism, 
Buddhism and Confucianism occupy different fields, and 
that no one of them alone is sufficient) was officially 
recognized ; and the attempt was made to combine them. 
Families were required to be connected with both Shinto 
and Buddhist temples ; and the instruction in ethics was 
to be Confucian. It frequently happens also that one 
who in all his thinking is a Confucianist will have in 
his house both Shinto and Buddhist shrines. From this 
it will be seen that (to say nothing more) the non- 
Christian religions of Japan form a piece of curious 
patchwork ; and that this fact alone radically differenti- 
ates them from the Christianity of Christ and the New 
Testament. 

Ibuka, Japan: — 

Buddhism, in its philosophical form, is either pan- 
theistic or atheistic and, in its popular form, polythe- 
istic, while Christianity is theistic from beginning to 
end. The Buddhistic idea of man, also, is radically 
different from that of Christianity. The transmigration 
of the soul is one of its essential ideas of man, with all 
it implies. So are the conceptions of sin "and future 
life. It would not be difficult to mention other points 
of difference. But the fundamental difference between 
Buddhism and Christianity, I think, is this, — Buddhism 
is a system of metaphysical and ethical ideas and prin- 
ciples. According to Christianity, God has an eternal 
purpose which he is carrying out. To carry this out he 
has in fact manifested Himself in history. In His in- 
carnation, the cross, the redemption, the ascension of 
Christ, He has entered into union with man, met the 
problem of sin, raised man to a new life. The believer 



252 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

enters into union with God in Christ, and so will have 
a share in the eternal glory. There is nothing like that 
in Buddhism. 

Ebina, Japan: — 

The non-Christian religions are ethnic and therefore 
imperfect; Christianity is a religion for man as man, 
and is perfect. The non-Christian religions have come 
to be rather systems of philosophy or ethics ; Chris- 
tianity is a life. As a life it enters humanity; and is a 
power progressively delivering humanity from igno- 
rance, superstition, sin and its consequences, and bring- 
ing it more and more to the mind of Christ. The non- 
Christian religions belong rather to the past and have 
finished their work. That work Christianity completes; 
and to it belong the present and the future. 

Honda, Japan: — 

The radical and essential differences between Chris- 
tianity and the non-Christian religions of Japan are 
these: (1) The non-Christian religions are pantheistic 
or polytheistic. (2) They have in them practically 
nothing that corresponds'to the revelation of God in 
Christ. 

Uemura, Japan: — 

In a word, the difference between the perfect and the 
imperfect, the complete and the defective. The non- 
Christian religions see in a mirror darkly and dis- 
tortedly; in Christianity life and immortality are 
brought to light. 

Watanabe, Japan: — 

The radical difference between Christianity and non- 
Christian religions seems to consist in their principal 
objects of worship. I do not think that there is any 
religion which interprets our God Jehovah as clearly 
and perfectly as does Christianity. 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 25b" 

Tsen, China: — 

To speak in general, the great difference between 
Christianity and non-Christian religions is that in the 
one religion and oolitics are distinct or rather that 
Christianity is the more predominant in the life of the 
Christian, whereas in the other, Erastianism. The one is 
active, growing, developing, philosophical, ideal yet 
equally practical, stimulating; the other inactive, 
stationary, too philosophical and idealistic and abstract 
and false to be practicable. The fossilized ideas or 
religion may be galvanized at times, but cannot be a 
continuous force for good, hence easily corruptible. 

Che-Kiang Pastors, China: — 

The religion of Jesus, being from heaven, has saving 
grace for body and soul, proclaiming redemption from 
sin and eternal happiness. This constitutes the great 
difference between it and the world religions. 

The religion of Jesus has power in itself, and when it 
finds a lodgment in the heart of a believer, he is enabled 
to take pleasure in the will of God. 

The emphasis is put by Christianity on atonement for 
sin and redemption, while other religions put the 
emphasis on meritorious conduct. 

Kil, Korea: — 

Christianity offers redemption from sin, the salva- 
tion of the soul, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and 
regeneration — the giving of a new life. Other religions 
teach good conduct but are lacking in these essentials. 

Mukerji, India: — 

It is very difficult to point out the essential differ- 
ences between Hinduism and Christianity, as the former 
is not a system but a congeries of beliefs with many 
strands in it, — such as Vedic, Philosophic, and Puranic 
Hinduism, — each having its distinctive doctrines. The 
only doctrine that may be said to be common to all 



254 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

these divisions is Karma and Transmigration. The 
essential differences are most apparent in Philosophic 
Hinduism. The root ideas here are totally different 
from Christianity. God is impersonal, the end of man 
is absorption in the Divine; sin is an illusion. 

Siraj ud Din, India: — 

(a) As regards the Semitic Religions: (1) Judaism 
is not Moses, nor Mohammedanism Mohammed, in the 
sense that Christianity is Christ. (2) Law came through 
Moses and we may add (with due reverence to the 
prophets of the Old Testament) also through Moham- 
med, but Grace came through Jesus Christ. (3) Both 
Judaism and Mohammedanism emphasize God as Power 
as distinguished from Love. Hence the Cross is God as 
weakness to the Jew and the Mohammedan, but God as 
power to the regenerated soul. (4) Judaism has a 
Supernatural basis ; Christianity is Supernatural through 
and through. Mohammedanism admits the Supernatural 
in its record ot history, but in its Logical sequence 
approaches the Natural or the purely Rational. 

(b) As regards the non-Semitic Religions: (1) They 
emphasize God as Wisdom (or rather human wisdom) 
rather than Faith. They are, according to their popular 
acceptation, nothing but systems of ritualism and 
according to their highest interpretation primarily 
systems of philosophy (I am keeping chiefly Hinduism 
in view) rather than religions of Life. They are pre- 
eminently theoretical rather than practical. They appeal 
primarily to the Intellect, whereas Christianity appeals 
in the first instance to the Will. Hence the Cro 
foolishness to the Greek and the Hindu, whereas it is 
God as wisdom to the believer. (2) The absence of the 
idea of God as personality in the non-Semitic religions 
has alreadv been referred to. 




Japan — An Idol Procession 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 255 

3. How should Christianity be presented to How 
the non-Christian peoples? Present 

Tsen, China:— Christianity 

to non- 
Christianity should be presented to the non-Christian ^, . . . 
n ■.. , r. „ Christians? 

peoples not as at flat contradiction or at defiance to all 

the religions already in existence, but as acknowledging 
and approving all the good that is in them. And that, 
while perfect in itself, Christianity seeks to perfect all 
that they are trying to do to reveal to them the mys- 
teries of God which they are seeking after and soothe 
their hearts. That the Christian religion is a religion 
of mercy, of the only God and of salvation by Jesus 
Christ only ; meeting all the social, moral and spiritual 
wants and longings of all ages and climes, healing all 
''groans" and giving hold to all the gropings after Truth 
and Good, and yea, God. 

Che-Kiang Pastors, China: — 

Start with what men already believe, and slowly lead 
through into the truth. 

Aim first of all to bring men to an appreciation of 
their own sin and then present the offer of salvation 
through Christ. 

Jaisohn, Korea: — 

In presenting Christianity to non-Christian people, I 
believe the teachings of Jesus inspired in the New Test- 
ament should be taught first and emphasized. Of 
course, the missionary must not only teach them by 
words, but he must impress them with his Christlike 
life in private, as well as public. 

Kil, Korea: — 

As offering redemption from sin and everlasting life. 
In order to arouse to a sense of sin and to acceptance of 
salvation. As showing that this is a condemned world. 
There is no power in presenting anything else. This it 
is which has had power in winning all the Korean 
Christians. 



256 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



Should Dif- 
ferences or 
Resemblance 
be 
Emphasized ? 



Siraj ud Din, India: — 

The stereotyped, but, all the same, the right answer 
to this question is : Not by sermons, not by preaching 
only, but by Life. One must live Christ. The head 
has been reached in many cases but not the heart. The 
experience of converts to Christianity bears out the 
truth that it was something in the life of a Christian 
teacher or preacher, or friend or acquaintance, that led 
them to accept Christ. 

4. Most of the correspondents merged the 
third question in the fourth. Should the em- 
phasis be laid upon the points which Christianity 
has in common with the non-Christian religions, 
or should these be made merely the starting point 
in the effort to show what Christianity alone 
offers? 

Kozaki, Japan: — 

In presenting Christianity to the Japanese, emphasis 
should be laid upon the truths distinctive of it, rather 
than upon those which it holds in common with Shin- 
toism, Buddhism and Confucianism. 

Ebina, Japan: — 

The points which the non-Christian religions of 
Japan have in common with Christianity should be 
taken merely as starting points. My own endeavor is 
to show that Christianity fulfills the truths contained in 
the non-Christian religions; and I am careful to note 
both the resemblances and the differences. 

Uemura, Japan: — 

The truths which the non-Christian religions of 
Japan have in common with Christianity should be 
taken only as stepping stones to what is clearer and 
higher in Christianity. The example to follow is Paul 
on Mars Hill. 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 257 

Honda, Japan: — 

In presenting Christianity to Shintoists, Buddhists 
and Confucianists, the points in common should be 
taken simply as starting points from which to lead to 
the distinctive truths of Christianity. 

Ibuka, Japan: — 

In presenting Christianity to non-Christian people 
who know little or nothing about it, it is eminently wise 
to find some points which the Christian and non-Chris- 
tian hold in common. An experienced preacher in- 
stinctively seeks such points, especially when he stands 
before a prejudiced or hostile audience. But that 
should be only the starting point in the effort to show 
how different Christianity is from all that they have 
believed or been taught. If the chief object were to 
bring out the essential oneness of Christianity with 
other religions, it would be hardly worth while to send 
missionaries to non-Christian lands. 

Tsen, China: — 

The things in common should be made as the start- 
ing point, the emphasis should be laid on the mercy of 
God, the Heavenly Father, and salvation from sin by 
Jesus Christ. At the same time, though there are many 
points in common, theirs are but fragmentary or defi- 
cient, or even a semblance of the truth, and need to be 
purified by the fire of the Holy Spirit. The ethnic reli- 
gions and heathen philosophies have their work and 
worth in the building of the Temple of God and Christ 
comes to be its Headstone, yea its completion. 

Che-Kiang Pastors, China: — 

Of course you should point out the features in which 
Christianity and other religions agree, but the more 
important thing is to emphasize the points of difference. 
The preacher should put the emphasis on the points of 
difference between Christianity and the world religions, 
so as to cause the hearer to compare the true and the 
false and discover the difference. 



258 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Jaisohn, Korea: — 

I believe the missionary should point out strongly the 
differences between Christianity and other religions 
rather than to lay emphasis on the points which may 
exist in common with them. All religions or moral 
philosophies have some points in common, but com- 
paratively in minor points, with Christianity. The 
fundamental or cardinal principle of Christianity is the 
belief of Jesus as the only Saviour of the world, through 
whom alone we can reach our God and His Kingdom. 

Kil, Korea: — ■ 

There is no power in presenting the common 
points, — one should preach the distinctive doctrines of 
the salvation of the soul and redemption from sin. One 
should teach the Scriptures, not the sayings of Confu- 
cius. The truths which the people do not know from 
the non-Christian religions are what bring power and 
inspiration. However, one can often teach of sin by 
reference to the fact that they have not obeyed even the 
moral teachings of Confucius. 

Siraj ud Din, India: — 

That the unsympathetic attitude of the preachers of 
Christianity towards the followers of other religions is 
certainly un-Christian, in so far as it shows lack of love, 
is clear. But, on the other hand, there is also danger 
of making too much of the points of resemblance 
between the Christian and the non-Christian faiths. 
There is fear of degenerating into a spirit of compro- 
mise (as is evident in the case of many professed 
ibelievers) and finally accepting an unscriptural and 
centirely irrational eclecticism. There is danger of 
;losing sight of the fact that Fulfillment and Exclusive- 
ness are both fundamental attributes of Christianity. 
"While Christ is the fulfillment of the desire of all 
nations, He is also exclusively so. "No man knoweth 
who the Father is but the Son and he to whom the Son 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 259 

will reveal Him. (Matt. xi. 27.) We should take the 
resemblances only as a starting point/ hut ever empha- 
size the peculiarities and excellences of the truth 1 in' 
Christ, and carefully avoid giving- people the- impression ' 
that there is truth in other religions evert" asSve-' find' it 1 
in Christianity. 

5. Are the elements which Christianity has in Are tke- 
common with other religions as numerous and Differences' 
extensive as is sometimes supposed, or are there Fundamental, 
fundamental differences of principle which make 
these points of contact apparent rather than real? 

Honda, Japan: — 

The points in common between Christianity and the 
non-Christian religions of Japan are less numerous than 
is supposed by some ; and many of them are more 
apparent than real. That this is so, and must be so, is 
evident when one considers that no one of these non- 
Christian religions is theistic, and that their ethical 
teaching is utilitarian rather than religious in its princi- 
ples and sanctions. 

Kozaki, Japan: — 

There is a tendency among Western scholars to put 
too much stress upon the resemblances of Christianity to 
non-Christian religions. The points in common are not 
so numerous as is supposed by some ; and the differ- 
ences are so fundamental that the resemblances are 
often more apparent than real. 

Uemura, Japan: — 

There are many points of resemblance, for the non- 
Christian religions recognize the existence of something 
supernatural, .and that this something is closely related 
to man. But the differences are numerous and funda- 
mental. To illustrate very briefly : — 

(1) Shintoism. In Japan bands of pilgrims are often 
seen on their way to sacred places. The word for pil- 



260 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

grimage means wayfaring worship ; and each pilgrim 
bears written on his hat the words, "Two going to- 
gether" (*. e., the pilgrim and the pilgrim's god). In 
the old Shintoism, the idea of sin as an offense against 
God is prominent. (The word for sin is composed of 
two words; one means disquietude, and the other self. 
Such a word has in it the ideas of personal responsi- 
bility, a troubled conscience, guilt. Evidence of the 
same kind appears in Shinto prayers.) Still it must be 
said that even in the old and purer Shintoism sin is 
conceived of rather as ceremonial defilement. One is 
reminded of the Jewish conceptions of sin which the 
prophets condemned. If Shintoism had followed its 
true bent it might have approached the deeper convic- 
tion of sin as moral evil ; and therefore, from that point 
of view, there are occasions when the Christian preacher 
may properly call upon the Japanese to seek out the old 
ways. But the true development of Shintoism was 
checked and set back by the invasion of Buddhism and 
Confucianism. Still even in the Shintoism of to-day 
there is a strong element of reverence. (Yet even this 
statement must be qualified, because it is a reverence 
whose roots are fed rather by the aesthetic than by the 
ethical. I 

(2) Buddhism. The philosophy underlying Buddhism 
k pantheistic ; and this of necessity differentiates it 
fundamentally from Christianity. The world is full of 
sorrow and suffering, with ignorance for their cause; 
but the sense of sin in Buddhism as moral evil is very 
feeble, and there is little or no feeling of personal 
responsibility to God. Man is groping for a way of 
escape from the ills of life. Yet there are in Buddhism 
striking resemblances to Christian truths. At times 
pantheism retreats into the background. Amida and the 
goddess Kwannon are both conceived of as personal ; 
and they are both abundant in mercy and ready to save. 
But if the resemblances are striking, no less are the 
differences. The salvation is not a salvation from sin. 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 261 

One could not say of Amida, And if ye call on Amida 
as Father, who without respect of persons judgeth 
according to each man's work, pass the time of your 
sojourning in fear. The mercy of Kwannon is the 
mercy of motherliness, a motherliness too indulgent 
ever to punish. Neither Amida nor Kwannon could 
say, Be ye holy ; for I am holy. And what must never 
be forgotten is this : Amida and Kwannon are purely 
subjective creations ; mere apotheoses of what is craved 
after by the heart of Buddhism. In Christ we have the 
objective revelation in history of the holiness and love 
of God. Amida and Kwannon are only cries for light ; 
Christ is the Light of the World. 

(3) Confucianism. Properly speaking, Confucianism 
is not a religion. Religiously considered, it is thorough- 
going agnosticism ; ethically considered, it is equally 
thoroughgoing utilitarianism. If a Confucianist is 
religious, it is not because of his Confucianism but in 
spite of it. There are Confucianists who are also 
Shintoists ; and there are Christians who are also Con- 
fucianists. But Confucianism as Confucianism is secu- 
larism. It boasts that it is practical ; and it is practical, 
— so practical that it quenches the desire and atrophies 
the mind for the higher things. It does not seek the 
things that are above. It minds earthly things, and 
finds its kingdom of heaven in politics. The Con- 
fucianist may, and often does, have a vague conscious- 
ness of the Great Companion ; but it is because he is a 
man, not because he is a Confucianist. The American 
Confucius was Benjamin Franklin; and Poor Richard 
without the Sermon on the Mount, year in and year out 
for line upon line and precept upon precept, would 
make America another China. 

It is sometimes said that the Confucianist is more 
receptive of Christianity than the Buddhist ; and refer- 
ence is made to the progress of Christianity in Tosa as 
compared with its progress in the parts of Japan where 
Buddhist is dominant. But Satsuma and Choshu, which 



262 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

united with Tosa in the Restoration, were quite as 
strongly Confucian as Tosa; and yet there has been in 
them no corresponding progress of Christianity. On 
the other hand, Christianity has made good progress in 
Nagoya, which is a center of Buddhism. The notable 
progress in Tosa is due to two causes combined. The 
people were open minded, progressive and ready to 
receive the things of the West; and in the beginning of 
the gospel in Tosa a little group of men of influence 
accepted Christianity in sincerity and truth. 

Ebina, Japan: — 

The points in common are numerous and extensive; 
and there are also fundamental differences. To illus- 
trate : — 

(1) In Shintoism, especially in the tenets of the 
Kurozumi Sect, God is conceived of as a father and 
men as his children. There is a life eternal which is 
thought of as divine. But it should be said that its 
conception of God, while clearly not deistic, does not 
distinguish sharply between theism and pantheism. 

(2) As to Buddhism : Philosophically the Jodo Sect 
may properly be described as pantheistic ; but in fact it 
regards Amida as a person. While it recognizes other 
Buddhas, Amida is supreme — the Buddha of Buddhas; 
and may be worshiped to the exclusion of all others. 
To this extent, therefore, it may be said to be non- 
polytheistic. The Jodo Sect teaches also that human 
nature is depraved, and that man cannot save himself. 
He can be saved only through the mercy and merits of 
Amida. To this, however, it should be added that 
while Christianity lays stress upon sin in its relation to 
righteousness, in Jodoism stress is laid rather upon 
suffering as the effect of the transgression of eternal 
law. In Jodoism it may also be fairly said that there is 
no sense of personal responsibility to a personal God. 

The teaching of the Zen Sect is radically different. 
According to its tenets, the original nature of man is 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 263 

truth and goodness ; and the duty of man is to return to 
that original nature. This return is accomplished by 
contemplation and discipline. 

The Shingon Sect is purely pantheistic. Every man 
in essence is Buddha. 

From this it will be seen that the Buddhist Sects are 
widely separated among themselves. But all Buddhists 
claim that fundamentally all the sects are in harmony. 

(3) As to Confucianism : If the essential element in 
religion is a personal relation between man and a per- 
sonal God, it may be said in general that Confucianism 
is not a religion; though there are Confucianists who 
worship a personal God and are deeply religious. But 
Confucianism has its foundation in the moral order of 
the universe ; and its end is the establishment of what 
may be compared to the Kingdom of God upon earth. 
It therefore lays emphasis upon the ethical rather than 
upon the more strictly religious ; and its teachings 
should be compared with the ethical rather than with 
the religious elements in Christianity. 

As a rule the Confucian mind is much more easy of 
access to Christianity than the Buddhist mind ; and the 
explanation is that Confucianism is far more ethical 
than Buddhism. The Confucianist honors righteous- 
ness ; the Buddhist is far more given to seeking an 
excuse for unrighteousness. A standing proof of the 
greater accessibility of Christianity to the Confucius 
mind is to be found in the progress of Christianity in 
such Prefectures as Kochi, Okayama and Gumma, as 
compared with its progress on the West coast where 
Buddhism has long been predominant. 

Ibuka, Japan: — 

In Japan, I think, the question chiefly relates to Bud- 
dhism, because all will agree that there is very little 
likeness between Christianity and Shinto or Confu- 
cianism, unless it be in the case of Shinto the emphasis 
laid upon the purity of heart, and in the case of Con- 



264 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

fucianism the great importance attached to benevolence 
and justice. But these teachings are rather common to 
all ethical systems or religions, so that they cease to be 
points in common between any two particular religions. 

Now to come back to Buddhism, it is certainly true 
that there are some striking resemblances between Bud- 
dhism and Christianity, especially Latin Christianity. 
When I was in Rome some years ago and went with my 
friend, Bishop Honda, to see the great cathedral of St. 
Peter's, as soon as we entered it I said, Why this is just 
like a Buddhist temple. Not only the shrines, the 
images, the candles, the incense and the priests chant- 
ing their prayers and the people bowing before the 
images, but the whole atmosphere very strongly 
reminded me of the Buddhist temple and its ritual in 
Japan. In fact I did not for the moment feel as though 
I were in a Christian place of worship. 

I could also cite a number of striking resemblances 
between the legend of Gautama and the life of Christ, 
which are well known to all scholars. But numerous 
and striking as they are, these resemblances are resem- 
blances only. There are fundamental differences which 
make these two religions essentially different. For 
instance, Buddhism knows nothing about the Creator 
of the Universe nor of the Father in heaven. They 
have different manifestations or personifications like the 
goddess of mercy and the god of the immovable, but a 
personal God in the Christian sense of the word is 
entirely foreign to Buddhism. Consequently, the Bud- 
dhist conception of sin is very different from that of 
Christianity. There is no idea of transgressing the holy 
law of God. Hence, there is no atonement, no cross in 
Buddhism. It is only a process of enlightenment, 
awakening to one's true self, whatever that may be. 

It is true that one of the Buddhist sects teaches some- 
thing like salvation by faith, — faith in Amida Buddha ; 
and the followers of this sect say that there is no essen- 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 265 

tial difference between their religion and Christianity, 
which is still in its imperfect stage of evolution, etc. 
But Buddhist scholars are generally agreed that the 
Shin sect is not true Buddhism. Salvation by faith in 
Amida is quite foreign to the teaching of Sakya-muni. 

Tsen, China: — 

The sparks of the same truth are in all religions, 
Christian or those that base on ethics and philosophy. 
The points of community are, if any, on the moral 
side. But at the foundation of all resemblances there 
is this essential difference, that all ethnic religions 
ultimately aim for self, whereas the religion of Christ, 
like Christ, ultimately aims for atonement of self, or 
better humanity, with God, by Christ. 

Che-Kiang Pastors, China: — 

Although there are points of similarity, yet the 
similarity is confined chiefly to the merely human ideas. 
In reality the likeness is largely a seeming likeness 
between things which are actually different. 

Jaisohn, Korea: — 

I believe there are many religions other than Chris- 
tianity that expound the same or similar moral prin- 
ciples as the Christian churches. In fact, some accept 
the Old Testament in its entirety as the inspired truth, 
but that alone does not make them Christian. The 
foundation of Christianity is the New Testament, which 
distinguishes it from all other religions. The belief in, 
and obedience of, the Ten Commandments or the 
Golden Rule alone is not sufficient to classify a man as 
a Christian. He must believe Jesus as his only Saviour 
before he can be called a Christian. 

Kil, Korea: — 

Rules of conduct are often the same, but the motive 
is different, fear being the main motive. Salvation by 
good works is the teaching of non-Christian religions. 



266' THE LIGHT OF TH£ WORLD 



The Proper 
Attitude of 
Christianity 
Toward 
the non- 
Christian 
Religions. 



Siraj ud Din, India: — 

They are not as numerous as' they are sometimes 
made out, especially with the non-Semitic religions, and 
even between Christianity and Mohammedanism there 
are fundamental differences. 

6. What should be the proper attitude of 
Christian preachers and teachers and of organized 
Christianity in Asia to the non-Christian reli- 
gions? Two of the correspondents, Justice 
VVatanabe and Professor Mukerji, combined their 
answers to several of the questions, and their very 
thoughtful and interesting opinions are set forth 
under this sixth question. 

Ibuka, Japan: — 

In general, I should say the attitude should be always 
friendly and kindly, but firm; that is to say, while, as 
■fellow countrymen, we will willingly co-operate in our 
efforts to elevate the morality and civic virtues of the 
people, we should firmly hold our position as Christians 
and by every legitimate means try to convince them of 
the truth of Christianity. More than one attempt has 
been made to form a sort of alliance between Buddhists 
and Christians. But I have never favored it nor have 
they amounted to anything. 

Uemura, Japan: — 

The attitude of Christian preachers and teachers 
toward the non-Christian religions of Japan should 
be benevolently belligerent, sympathetically suppressive. 

There are missionaries who anticipate a development 
of Christian theology in Japan peculiar to Japan. That 
there will be such a development is not unlikely; but 
it will not be accelerated or aided by an attempt on the 
part of missionaries to accommodate themselves or 
their teachings to the non-Christian religions. They 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 267 

will best serve the cause of Christian theology in Japan 
by being themselves ; by teaching the Christianity which 
they hold as they themselves hold it; and by allowing 
Christian theology to develop historically and naturally. 
Christian missionaries are not called upon to play the 
part of either mediators or eclectics. 

Ebina, Japan: — 

What is true in the non-Christian religions should, 
be willingly recognized ; and the effort made to lead the 
mind up to what is higher and better in Christianity. 
The attitude of Christianity should be that of an elder 
to a younger brother. 

Kozaki, Japan: — 

There are elements of truth in the non-Christian 
religions of Japan, and the Christian teacher should 
approach them in the spirit of charity. But he should 
be firm in his adherence to the truths that are peculiar 
to Christianity. In referring to Judaism, Christ said, "I 
am not come to destroy but to fulfill." As far as may 
be possible, the Christian teacher in Japan should be 
guided by His example. 

Honda, Japan: — 

The Christian preacher and teacher should be respect- 
ful in his attitude towards the non-Christian religions, 
but careful not to compromise the distinctive truths of 
Christianity. 

Jaisohn, Korea: — 

In order to be true to their belief and their profes- 
sion, the Christian teachers should point out intelli- 
gently and truthfully the falsity or errors of other 
religions to those whom they desire to convert, but at 
the same time offensive attack on other religions is liable 
to cau.se more harm than good. Therefore, a mission- 
ary vom&t be a trained diplomat as well as a faithful 
servant oi the Churgh., 



268 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Kil, Korea: — 

Avoid disputings and contention. Be friendly and 
courteous and bear witness by good works and love in 
the teaching of truth as truth, and not as arguments for 
the intellectual victory over an antagonist. Rely upon 
the application of the truth by the Holy Spirit, without 
argument and dispute. Refer to one's own past experi- 
ence in becoming enlightened as to the error of former 
belief and as to the truth of Christianity. 

Tsen, China: — 

The proper attitude to the non-Christian religions in 
Asia should be to have all sympathy with them. Give 
full recognition to the good that is in them; show, if 
necessary, their wants, defects and corruptions 7 duly 
honor their founders and leaders; help along, if possible 
and necessary, and wisely, the pure charity they do or 
attempt. 

Che-Kiang Pastors, China: — 

Show the unreliableness of the world religions, but 
present the truth sympathetically so as not to embarrass 
or anger the hearer. 

Watanabe, Japan: — 

With regard to the question whether it is advisable to 
dwell at length on points in common between Chris- 
tianity and other religions — whether a great deal of this 
community is not apparent rather than real — and 
whether real religious progress is not made by a 
process of triumphant absorption, I am inclined to 
think that the Japanese adage, "Everybody regards his 
own deity as most holy" (it corresponds to the Western 
proverb, "Everyone thinks his own geese swans"), 
seems to be a pertinent observation. 

As we Christians believe that Christianity is a divine 
revelation from the Creator of the universe and is the 
only religion of the world, so Buddhists believe in their 
creed. We firmly believe in Christ's own words that 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 269 

He is the only Son of God ; Buddhists have as deep a 
faith in Sakya's proud declaration, "Throughout heaven 
and earth I alone am holy." 

The teachings of Confucius may not properly be 
called a religion in the true sense of the word, but from 
ancient times they have exercised influences in China 
and Japan amounting almost to that emanating from a 
religion. Confucius says, "Study of heresy begets 
nothing but harm, " and Confucians naturally want to 
exclude all teachings but those of Confucius. There 
is a famous work dealing with the matter entitled 
"Bukkotsu Hyo" (Japanese pronunciation), and written 
by a Chinese literary man of the Tang Dynasty. I 
presume that a similar view is held by adherents of 
all other religions. 

Therefore, if there were a people possessed of no 
religious faith at all, he who desired to preach a certain 
religion to them would not need to dwell upon points 
of harmony of that religion with others, nor upon those 
in which they differed. He can at once adopt an atti- 
tude of triumphant absorption in his intercourse with 
them. When, however, he wants to inspire a foreign 
faith into a people already possessed of one faith or 
other, it will not be enough for him merely to preach 
his own faith alone. 

I may illustrate this fact with a supposititious law- 
suit. Let us suppose that the plaintiff in an action 
insists upon some theory while the defendant maintains 
another, both being equally desirous of a victory. Let 
us further suppose that the judge in charge of the case 
thinks that both theories are untenable and has made 
up his mind that his own theory must be produced in 
order to do justice to their claims and bring them on 
good terms again. With this end in view, the judge 
would surely only lay himself open to disappointment 
did he merely set forth his own theory and naively 
counsel the litigants to readjust their differences on the 



270 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

basis of his theory. For each of the litigants is equally 
confident that his own assertion is correct, and would 
refuse to do as bidden. Then what is done by the judge 
before pronouncing his decision? Will he not point 
out in what respect the theories of the litigants agree, 
in what respect they disagree, what points of the theory 
maintained by the plaintiff are just for such and such a 
reason, what points of the theory of the defendant are 
unreasonable because of such and such a case, and 
therefore that what they ought to do is such and such a 
thing? If he did so, the litigants would probably accept 
his ruling. 

On the contrary, if the judge abruptly gave a dog- 
matic judgment and stated that whether the litigants 
were disposed to obey his dictum or not his own 
opinion was such as he had given, the difference would 
not be readjusted. The result would be not only mis- 
fortune to the litigants but also fai.'ure for the judge in 
his efforts. Are not religious matters similar to the case 
above mentioned? 

I do not think that Christianity can be revealed to 
non-Christians in any better way than by showing it in 
its true and sound form. I believe that it will be of no 
use wantonly to decorate it with human intellect. There 
are some people who insist that Christianity ought to be 
nationalized in the country Christians are desirous of 
evangelizing, but I think that such an opinion is not 
sound. 

I deem it poor preaching to place too much stress 
upon details of Christian doctrines, and incidentally 
render people unable to catch the fundamental and 
indispensable spirit of our religion. I think we find the 
spirit of this principle clearly set forth by Christ in St. 
Mark, Chapter 2d, Verse 27. ... I see no necessity to 
dwell continually upon points in common between Chris- 
tianity and non-Christian religions. 

Salvation is the life of Christianity; the so-called 
redemption of the world of Buddhism appears also to be 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 271 

its life. I cannot readily enumerate the points in com- 
mon between Christianity and other religions, but I do 
not think it is safe to say that there is no fundamental 
community of principle, but only an apparent one. . . . 
It is most important for Christians to hold impartial 
views towards non-Christian religions. 

Mukerji, India: — 

The Christian preacher, if he has a gospel to preach, 
must believe in the absolute character of Christianity, 
and not that it is merely one of many religions. But at 
the same time, if there is a providential order of the 
world and its history not meaningless, then Christianity 
must have a satisfying answer to the question of its 
relationship to the other religions; it cannot be an 
isolated phenomenon in the history of religions. This 
relationship is not one of similarities only, or of differ- 
ences only, but one of development. Belief in the 
former takes away from the uniqueness of Christianity, 
and belief in the latter militates against the unity of 
history. But the theory of development preserves both 
these traits for Christianity. Christianity, by th« way, 
has nothing to fear from the new Science of Religions; 
a truly scientific study of it will only discover the 
uniqueness of Christianity. Sometimes a difference is 
sought to be made out in Christian work between the 
method of development and that of contrasts — the 
pointing out of differences. But it is an artificial one, 
the latter being included in the former, as all develop- 
ment is the bringing out of something new. A prima 
facie case for this difference may indeed be made out 
from the present partiality on the part of the upholders 
of the method of development to the emphasizing of 
similarities as against differences. But this is not at all 
surprising, as we always find progress in history to be a 
swinging between extremes — and the pendulum has 
indeed at the present moment swung to the former 
extreme, that of emphasizing similarities. 



272 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

For this, however, there are ample historical reasons. 
In the first flush of Western culture in Eastern lands, 
everything Eastern was decried and nothing good was 
found in them ; the good and the bad being blent in 
one common condemnation. But soon the inevitable 
reaction came with the birth of nationalism in Eastern 
lands ; and Christianity herself helped it on by putting 
the non-Christian faiths on their mettle, by making 
them slough off the bad and throwing them more and 
more on the really sound in their religious life. People 
began asking themselves the question, can a self-respect- 
ing nation cut itself off entirely from its past and dis- 
card its religious inheritance altogether? Has the past 
no meaning for us, but is only a madman's tale full of 
sound and fury signifying nothing? It was to meet 
such a mood as this that the method of development 
came into vogue in Christian work, replacing the old 
method of wholesale abuse and supercilious criticism. 
One aspect of this method — that of pointing out sim- 
ilarities — might have been over-emphasized by now, but 
the method as such cannot be said to be invalidated by 
it, but always shall retain its place and use. For the 
mood which this method is meant to meet is no capri- 
cious mood, but an eminently just one. God is the 
Father of us all, — though of the Jew first and the 
Gentile afterwards, — and has not left His people at any 
time and anywhere without witness. He has been in 
the history of all nations, though He especially chose 
the Jews for His Revelation and was in a special sense 
in their history. The greai apostle to the Gentiles 
recognized this fact, thus setting his seal to the method. 
When speaking to the Athenians he appealed to a poet 
of theirs for vindication of Christian doctrine. And are 
we forcing things when we read a wider application than 
was meant at the time in the Master's words, "I came 
not to destroy but to fulfill," and think that there must 
have been many among the seers and prophets of non- 






ASIA'S OWN OPINION 273 

Christian religions who must have looked forward, as 
longingly as those in the real line of prophetical suc- 
cession, to the days of Him who is the desire of the 
nations? "For he that doeth truth cometh to the light, 
that his deeds may be made manifest that they are 
wrought in God." 

But the method of development, as we said, is not a 
mere emphasizing of similarities only. It includes 
pointing out of differences also; for in proceeding from 
a lower to a higher form, much that is old is left behind 
and much that is new absorbed. And here comes the 
place for criticism — the method of contrasts. The 
Apostle Paul, the first to use the method of develop- 
ment, is again our example in this. While seeking to 
find a foothold for the doctrines of Christianity in the 
national Scriptures of the people, he hesitated not to 
criticise whatever was un-Christian in them; e. g., see 
Acts xiv. 15; xvii. 24; xix. 19. Criticism can also 
serve the purpose of pointing out the differences in 
agreements, as in the Hindu and Christian doctrines of 
Incarnation. But criticism, if it is not to be misunder- 
stood, should be of doctrines only. Any criticism, by 
foreigners particularly, of the personal character of the 
religious heroes or of the social institutions of a coun- 
try, or disparaging contrasts of these with those of the 
West, will be fatal and defeat the preacher's object. 

Christianity is the fulfillment of all religions. This 
means that it is both similar and dissimilar to other 
religions, and no one of the methods — that of pointing 
out similarities and of differences — ought to be used 
exclusively of the other. 

Even where a truth is in common, it is to be found in 
a fuller and richer form in Christianity. It may be 
further added that in proportion as religion gets to be 
identified with philosophy and so separated from life, as 
in the case of Vedantism in India, the points of contact 
with Christianity grow less. In such a case a person 



274 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

has reasoned himself out of his natural beliefs, as to 
God, man, sin, etc., and so is intellectually farther 
from Christianity than one who believes in his spiritual 
intuitions. 

Siraj ud Din, India: — 

Our attitude must be reverential and sympathetic, and 
at the same time determinedly exclusive, giving full 
credit to the dictates of individual conscience and dis- 
tinguishing between those people who, having perceived 
the truth in Christianity, with a set purpose oppose this 
truth, and those who oppose it because they do not 
understand it. We must most religiously avoid indulg- 
ing in the spirit of exultation, glorying, triumph, 
victory over the defects in other religions and particu- 
larly the sins of their followers. 

We may supplement the evidence of these cor- 
respondents at this point by the testimony of Dr. 
Imad ud Din, the most notable convert from 
Mohammedanism in India, and of other converts 
quoted by Dr. H. Martyn Clark. Dr. Imad ud 
Din tells us: "I found nothing in Mohammedan- 
ism from which an unprejudiced man might in 
his heart derive true hope and real comfort, 
though 1 searched for it earnestly in the Koran, 
the Traditions, and also in Sufiism. Rites, cere- 
monies, and theories I found in abundance, but 
not the slightest spiritual benefit does a man get . 
by acting on them. He remains fast held in the 
grip of darkness and death. ... I discovered 
that the religion of Mohammed is not of God, 
and that the Mohammedans have been deceived, 
and are lying in error; and that salvation is 
surely to be found in the Christian religion." 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 275 

It must be recognized that this is the general 
attitude of Christians who had been Moham- 
medans or Hindus, or believers in some other 
faith. As Dr. H. Martyn Clark says: — 

The unanimity of all converts from Islam concerning 
that religion is emphatic and startling. "Earthly, sen- 
sual, devilish," is invariably in effect their deliverance. 
Not one of them has ever found it aught else but an 
evil and debasing thing. They have not felt the genial 
influences or vitalizing power of any of the truths it is 
supposed to contain. The statement that it has such 
truths is in itself a revelation to them, and when they 
hear such have been discovered to exist, their answer 
to that and other theories now rather the fashion con- 
cerning Islam, is a pitying smile, and a "Well! Well! 
It was our faith and that of our fathers before us ; we 
do not know of these things, nor have we so found it." 
As for its being a help towards God and good, it has 
been their sorest hindrance in the way of life. It has 
made the acceptance of Christian truth all the more 
difficult, and the Christian life infinitely harder. One 
of the best native pastors said: "After many years of 
Christianity the poison of Mohammedanism still works 
in our muscles and makes us weak. " They err who think 
Islam a development, an advance from a lower to a 
higher plane. It is in reality a retrogression, a degen- 
eration from a higher to a lower state. I took one 
convert to task for his unbridled speech. His reply 
was: "My father, you can afford to speak kindly of the 
thing. You were never steeped to the lips in that mire 
as I have been. Were it not for God's mercy, where 
would I be now?" (From the "Church Missionary 
Intelligencer," November, 1894: "Some Results of the 
Late Mohammedan Controversy," by Dr. H. Martyn 
Clark, p. 814 ff. ) 



276 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



Has 

Christianity 
Penetrated 
the Asiatic 
Mind? Can 
It Do So? 



There are converts who take a different atti- 
tude. A friend writes from India of a Christian 
layman, once a Mohammedan, who is now a 
great champion of Christianity as against the 
Moslem religion propaganda, and who says: — 

I have been proving the sublimity of the Christian 
religion and endeavoring to show that the Christian 
counterpart of everything good in doctrine and morality 
in Islam is always superior, and that Mohammedanism, 
even at its highest, is only the next best, and that from 
a true Koranic point of view the religion of the gospels 
is open to no question whatever. It is rather the goal 
to which all the religions of the world aspire to reach. 
My conception of Islam is more optimistic. I despair 
of the Islam which obtains more among the so-called 
Orthodox, and it is only these whose weakness I would 
expose. The Islam of the Koran, with its Asian Christ- 
ology, is a fine amalgam of Indiaism and Christianity. 
It is the Nazarene form of Christianity, confounded with 
certain social and religious prejudices of the time and 
the country, and can be very rightly regarded "rather 
as a heresy than as an alien faith," but not more 
heretical than so many ancient and modern ones. 

7. How far has Christianity as yet actually 
touched the life and thought of any Asiatic land? 
Mr. Meredith Townsend, in "Asia and Europe, " 
holds that Asia seems condemned by some fiat of 
arrest; that while capable of being moved by self- 
generated ideas, she seems to be inaccessible to 
new forces from without; that "something radi- 
cal, something unalterable and indestructible 
divides the Asiatic from the European. . . . 
They are fenced off from each other by an invis- 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 277 

ible, impalpable but impassable wall" ("Asia 
and Europe," pp. 36, 50, 150), and that Chris- 
tianity cannot hope, accordingly, to displace the 
non-Christian religions and to penetrate the life 
of the non-Christian world. What do you think 
of this view? 

Kozaki, Japan: — 

How anyone who knows anything of the history of 
Japan during the last fifty years can hold that "Asia is 
practically inaccessible to new principles" I cannot 
understand. To mention only one out of many things, 
the entire system of education in Japan, from the 
primary school to the university, is the education of the 
West ; and, through the primary school, education in 
Japan is compulsory. If Japan accepts ,the education of 
the West, why should it be inaccessible to Christianity? 
And in fact it is not inaccessible. No one can read the 
newspapers, the current literature, even the novelj of 
to-day, without seeing and feeling that Christianity is 
already in Japan as a recognized and steadily increasing 
influence. In a recent issue of the Jiji Shimpo (one of 
the most influential newspapers in Japan) the editor 
said, "While as yet the number of converts to Chris- 
tianity is not very great, Christian ethical ideas and the 
Christian world-view are widely spread among the 
people." To which it may be added that die steady 
growth of national churches is an effect without a cause, 
if Christianity has not entered the life of Japan. 

Ebina, Japan: — 

In Japan at least it is not true that Christianity can- 
not hope to penetrate the life of the people. Already 
Christian ethics are widely, almost universally, recog- 
nized as the highest ethical standard. To refer to one 
particular, the Christian teaching regarding sexual 
purity has profoundly impressed the Japanese mind, 



278 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

To a marked degree both Shintoism and Buddhism have 
been influenced by Christian ideas. Buddha is more and 
more conceived of as personal. The teaching concern- 
ing Nirvana is becoming colored with the teaching 
regarding the Kingdom of God. The duty of making 
this present world a paradise is now taught. The spirit 
of optimism is displacing the spirit of pessimism. The 
practical methods of Christianity are beginning to be 
imitated. Services are held on Sundays and prayer 
meetings are held. I almost feel like saying that in a 
real sense Buddhism is becoming leavened with Chris- 
tianity. 

Uemura, Japan: — 

Nothing is clearer than that in many ways Chris- 
tianity is already entering the life of Japan. In speak- 
ing to intelligent people the Christian preacher now 
seldom even refers to the folly of idol worship. 
Formerly, in speaking of God, it was commonly nec- 
essary to dwell upon his unity and spirituality; now, at 
least among those of some education, the word God has 
come itself to carry with it this conception of his 
nature. Far more than used to be the case, one may 
address men much as unconverted men are addressed in 
America or England. The reading of foreign literature 
has done much to make Christian ideas familiar; and 
has awakened in many a real interest in Christian books. 
Many who are not Christians read Christian sermons 
and understand them. It may interest you to know that 
Robertson and Beecher are favorites among the Shinto 
and Buddhist priests. Buddha is not only more and 
more thought of as personal by Buddhist teachers, — he 
is so described by them in their teaching. The pessi- 
mistic view of life is giving way to one that is more 
optimistic. Shinto and Buddhist priests officiate at 
weddings, a thing new under the sun. There are Bud- 
dhist Sunday schools, and Buddhist hymns sung, and 
the melody of organs. They have also borrowed the 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 279 

Taikyo Dendo (sometimes translated Forward Move- 
ment). But besides all these things, all of which are 
significant and some deeply so, there are the Christian 
churches, some of them more than thirty years old, 
many of them financially independent, and occupying 
all the most important centers in the empire. This 
then is the present situation. There are the Christian 
churches recognized by all as a constantly growing 
force ; and around the churches there is a far larger 
body— ten times as-large and more — interested in Chris- 
tianity, and consciously or unconsciously moving 
towards it. To say that Christianity cannot penetrate 
the life of Japan is to contradict what to anyone with 
eyes to see is a perfectly plain fact. 

Ibuka, Japan: — 

Meredith Townsend, it does seem to me, is entirely 
wrong in his statement. Does not the political "history 
of Japan for the past forty years show that the Japanese 
are not altogether "inaccessible to new principles?" 
Does not history also show that Christianity has some- 
what "penetrated the life" of some Japanese? Was not 
Neesima a Christian? Does Meredith Townsend forget 
the fact that three hundred years ago hundreds of 
Japanese Christians, men, women and even children, 
suffered martyrdom, when they were given a free choice 
between death and the denial of their Saviour? What 
more could you ask of them? As for me, I have no 
need for their martyrdom in proof of their faithfulness 
to their Master. I have stood by the deathbed of more 
than one Japanese Christian and witnessed such calm 
triumphant death that left not a particle of doubt in my 
mind as to their living faith in Christ. 

Watanabe, Japan: — 

I am convinced that Christianity has already pro- 
duced no small effect on the lives of Asiatics, especially 
of Japanese. Chinese are naturally not versatile, not 
only in religions but in all other matters, and they wilj 



280 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

require a great deal of time in order to adopt new 
principles. I doubt, however, whether Mr. Meredith 
Townsend did not go a little too far when he declared 
that Christianity cannot hope to penetrate the life 
of Asia. 

It is with very much regret that I have to admit that 
from the numerical point of view Japanese Christians 
cannot claim to any high consideration. There are 
many reasons why Christianity has not more adherents 
in Japan than it has at present. Historically, Chris- 
tianity had to suffer from a national prohibition until 
about half a century ago, and there are some Japanese 
who, not knowing its doctrines at all, have an almost 
instinctive dislike of Christianity; some look upon it as 
opposed to our state form ; and others, though fairly 
well informed that Christianity is an excellent religion, 
are ashamed to accept the gospels and will not follow it. 
These conditions are apparently not peculiar to Japanese 
alone. 

Even among non-Christians, however, that Chris- 
tianity is an excellent religion is often recognized, and 
they are being involuntarily influenced by Christian life 
in no small degree. For example, there are now indi- 
cations that people in Japan will not keep concubines 
openly as of old ; they have come to pay more regard to 
family peace, and the vicious habit of supposing hard 
drinking and lewdness essential qualifications of a hero 
and a great man is gradually decaying. It is worthy of 
note that charitable enterprises under Christian manage- 
ment are being assisted by willing hands ever increasing 
in number. We may well regard all this as a boon 
coming from advanced civilization, but it also arises 
partly from Christian influences. 

Kil, Korea: — 

Mr. Townsend does not understand Asia. The 
influence already exerted upon Korea, Japan and China 
is simply tremendous, and the most thoughtful scholars 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 281 

all recognize it, and more and more are saying that 
there can be no real deep, lasting reform without 
Christianity. The whole people here realize that it has 
been a blessing to them. 

Jaisohn, Korea: — 

In answer to your further inquiries as to how far 
Christianity has actually touched the life of any Asiatic 
country, I wish to call your attention to one fact which 
demonstrates what Christianity has done in Asia. The 
fact I have in mind is the treatment of the Russians 
captured by the Japanese during the recent war. Japan 
is not as yet called a Christian nation, but she acted in 
a most Christian-like manner during the war towards 
her unfortunate adversaries. To what may we attribute 
this humane act on the part of Japan? I believe it was 
the influence of Christianity which prompted her to be 
so kind and generous to her fallen foes. There is much 
room left in Japan for improvement, but whenever she 
does things the right way we ought to give her due 
credit. 

I do not agree with Mr. Meredith Townsend in his 
view as to the inability of Christianity to penetrate the 
non-Christian world. There are abundant proofs that it 
has already penetrated these regions and it will continue 
to do so. Soon after the recent calamity in Sicily, 
Japan sent $50,000 to Italy, and even poor Korea sent 
her mite for the unfortunate victims in far away Sicily. 
These things indicate' that Christianity has quietly and 
unknowingly leavened the hearts of people throughout 
the world. 

Tsen, China: — 

I know that Chinese life is greatly touched by Chris- 
tianity directly and indirectly. The decisive actions of 
the nation in the suppression of opium smoking and of 
footbinding of women are directly and almost entirely 
through Christian efforts. A public sentiment has long 



282 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

been prepared to render the two actions possible. Anti- 
opium movement is as old as the Protestant missions 
or the opium trade itself. Though there had been anti- 
footbinding edicts since the present dynasty, Mrs. 
Little's endeavors since about 1895 are really the first 
that were proved effective, at first among the Christians 
and then followed by non-Christian women. There are 
non-Christians, men and women, that form societies to 
fight this evil custom. At present the "natural foot" 
has become prevalent and fashionable. Our Christian 
Sabbath has been adopted as holidays all over the 
empire. It began to be printed on Chinese calendars 
along with other superstitions about fourteen years ago. 
Our hospitals and other charitable works have been 
much appreciated and followed. All that is connected 
with idol worship is decidedly declining. A Taoist 
priest told me himself of the decaying of Taoism. 
Most of the modern reforms were begun by mission- 
aries, by their institutions, their books or through 
scholars who got into some connection with them, 
though they became widespread or generally desired 
when China was wakened by her foreign wars and her 
foreign students returned. The galvanization of the 
scholastic (or higher) Buddhism by those reformers, the 
new and increased Confucian worship, the elevation of 
Confucius to a degree almost equal to the Chinese 
regard of heaven, while there are other causes for them, 
are due to a good extent to a reaction against the pro- 
gressive Christianity. 

Mukerji, India: — 

Mr. Townsend represents the views of Anglo-Indians 
whose interest it is to make out Asiatic people to be 
quite different from Europeans, and so retard their 
progress towards representative government and national 
independence. 

To speak for India only, Christianity has already 
revolutionized the thought and leavened the life of the 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 283 

country. Much of the unrest in the land to-day could 
be traced to it. Religion is shifting from its pantheistic 
position to theism ; it has come to be social instead of 
merely self-regarding; the spirit of brotherhood and 
Christian liberty is gaining ground in social matters, 
and the former conception of morals as relative is 
giving way to a belief in its absolute character. 

Siraj ud Din, India: — 

In the sense of the acceptance of Christ as a Saviour, 
no land as such has been touched. There are only 
individuals, and their number is small. Wholesale 
baptisms are sometimes administered with very little 
teaching, or true conversion, simply in the hope that 
the children of those converts will be true Christians. 

As regards the leavening of the non-Christian reli- 
gions, there is no doubt that several Asiatic lands, 
including India, have been touched. As an evidence 
we might mention marked and extensive movements in 
India, within the non-Christian religions, incorporating 
the ideals of Christianity, e. g. : — 

(1) The Arya Samaj, with its teaching about mono- 
theism. 

(2) The Brahmo Samaj — Universal brotherhood of 
man, and the Fatherhood of God. 

(3) Sir Sayid Ahmad's Sect, called Naturalists 
(quasi-deists or deists), with its emphasis on monogamy, 
and condemnation of divorce and of extreme purdah as 
practiced in Islamic countries. 

(4) Mirza of Kadian's Sect, with its teaching about 
"The Masil-i-Masih" (/. e., the Mirza was like Christ) 
and "the Holy Ghost" — and that men should either 
deny the supernatural ascension of our Saviour or 
acknowledge the superiority of His religion. 

(5) A class of Mohammedans (including Mohammed 
Hasan Amrohi, a translator and commentator of the 
Koran) who accept the Christian Scriptures as they are 
to be the word of God. 



284 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

(6) Finally mention might be made of Mohammed 
Igbal, Ph.D., Professor of the Lahore Government 
College, who, in a pamphlet on the Unity of God, 
acknowledges the deep meaning in the Christian Trinity 
and the doctrine of the atonement. 

Is Humanity 8. Is there such a racial chasm between East 

Two or One? and West as is represented, or is the common 
talk about such a chasm groundless? Are there 
not many Orientals and Occidentals who under- 
stand each other and who- have more in common 
than either Orientals or Occidentals have among 
themselves ? 

Honda, Japan: — 

There are differences between the East and the West, 
but it is a very extreme statement to say that there is 
something like a chasm between them. There are many 
Japanese and foreigners who enter into each others 
feelings, understand each other perfectly, and have 
been close personal friends for years. 

Uemura, Japan: — 

There is no racial chasm ; and the old feeling of 
antagonism is a thing of the past. There are differ- 
ences, but they are disappearing, and they will dis- 
appear altogether as Japan and the West come closer 
together socially. 

Watanabe, Japan: — 

I believe that the common talk of racial chasm 
between East and West is no fiction. I am disposed to 
think that such a chasm, if it does exist, owes its exist- 
ence more to Occidentals than to Orientals. Such 
racial chasm between Christians, however, is very nar- 
row, and I am glad to note signs that the homely 
clause "all men are brothers" is gradually becoming a 
fact among them. 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 285 

Ebina, Japan: — 

There is no racial chasm between the East and the 
West. More and more the Japanese are entering into 
the feelings and looking at things from the point of 
view of the West; rejoicing with those that rejoice and 
weeping with those that weep. 

Kozaki, Japan: — 

There are differences between the East and the West, 
and there are differences between the nations of Europe, 
but certainly it is true that Japan and the West are 
drawing closer together. This could not be true if there 
were a "chasm" between them. So far as individuals 
are concerned, there are many Japanese and Americans 
who think of each other only as old friends. 

Ibuka, Japan: — 

Everybody will admit that there are differences 
between the East and the West. Not only are their 
language, customs and their modes of thinking differ- 
ent ; they are different in their traits of character. And 
these are the things which first strike the eye of the 
tourist. Pretty much everything here seems to begin in 
the reverse order or be upside down ; for instance, in 
one's address you have first the city, then the ward, 
then the street, then the number, then the family name 
and the given name last. How strange ! What a queer 
people ! They could never understand us. Their mind 
must work differently from ours. So they gather, so 
they write ; and the report spreads over the world. 
This is the -tourist's view of Orientals. But all those 
Americans or Europeans who have lived here long 
enough and have studied- the language and the history 
of the people, and have come in close contact with them, 
will readily admit that after all at the bottom they are 
very much like themselves. The difference is only skin 
deep. 



286 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Jaisohn, Korea: — 

There is no question as to racial differences. The 
inhabitants of every country have their peculiar char- 
acteristics and even the people of the different sections 
in the same country entertain different ideas and possess 
different emotions. But one fact we must always 
remember, and that is we all belong to one human race. 
We are only different in the minor details. The races 
of man living apart in far distant parts of the globe 
naturally do not understand one another, and what one 
says or does may appear queer to the other. But if they 
were both brought up and educated in the same manner, 
I believe they would say or do about the same way and 
in the same manner, unless one is endowed with more 
natural gifts than the other. I believe the leavening 
influence of Christianity and the constant increase of 
facilities for travel and communication will eliminate 
the apparent chasm which exists between the different 
races. 

Kil, Korea: — 

There is no such chasm. How could there be such 
between Christians? There is a far greater separation 
between Japanese and Koreans than between Koreans 
and Westerners, and the Koreans express themselves far 
more readily and trust themselves more fully to 
Westerners than to Japanese. 

Tsen, China: — 

Yes, there is a natural chasm between Orientals and 
Occidentals in the ways of living and in the ways of 
thinking, but it is not at all an impassable one, imposs- 
ible to be healed up by constant intercommunication. 
For man is a spiritual and ethical being. When the 
hearts are right, the outward things matter nothing. 
There are cases of the greatest friendship between Occi- 
dentals and Orientals. And it seems to me the success 
of the missionary work is in direct proportion to the 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 287 

degree of the mutual understanding and spiritual rela- 
tion between the foreign and native workers. 

Mukerji, India: — 

There is a racial chasm between the East and the 
West, and the part of wisdom is to recognize it and not 
slur it over. Perfect understanding can exist only 
between equals, and so long as the East continues in her 
present condition of political subjection to the West, 
things will not be materially improved. 

Siraj iid Din, India: — 

No one but a superficial observer of things, and no 
one who understands human nature and the real signif- 
icance and depths of humanity, can for a moment 
assert that there is an impassable gulf between the 
East and the West. The visible chasm is due, to a large 
extent, to the providential but temporary relation 
between the ruling Anglo-Saxon race and the subject 
people. 

One touch of nature is enough to make the whole 
world akin ! But here there is exceedingly more than a 
touch of nature. There is the common ground of the 
entire depth of man's moral and spiritual nature. 
Therefore no one but he whose mental vision cannot go 
deeper than the skin, would seriously make an assertion 
like that. 

Yes, I know, from personal observation, of cases 
where there has been more real intimacy and true fel- 
lowship between a European or an American and an 
Indian than between two Europeans or Americans. 

9. Is the Christianity, not of the Church nor i 3 Chris- 
of the West, but of the New Testament, the final tianity in 
and absolute religion for men, or is it to be modi- Need of 
fied by contact with the non-Christian religions? Correction or 

Enrichment 

Ibuka, Japan:— by the non- 

This is a most important and interesting question. Christian 
It will be admitted at once by all Christians that the Religions? 



288 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Christianity of the New Testament, or the Christianity 
as Christ taught it, is the final religion of man, and that 
it is not to be modified or improved upon by coming 
into contact with any other religions. But the real 
question is whether the truth taught by Jesus has been 
already apprehended in all its fullness by the different 
races and nations which have come under its influence. 
We all know that there are different types of Chris- 
tianity, and that the Greek type of Christianity differs 
from that of the Latin and that that again differs from 
the Teutonic. We all know also that one type is 
superior to another in some respects, and inferior to it 
in others, each contributing something towards the 
realization of the ideal. Now the question before us is, 
Has the Japanese nation with its history and character- 
istics something really to contribute, so that in the 
course of time there will be a distinct type of Chris- 
tianity, even what may be called the Japanese type? 
This is a question which it seems to me history alone 
can answer. It is easy enough in regard to the external 
forms of Christianity to predict that they will be 
different — indeed they already are to some extent — 
from those developed in the West ; e. g., the forms of 
church government, worship, etc. But it is extremely 
difficult to forecast whether the Japanese mind will have 
something (not of course any new truth, but a deeper 
apprehension of the truth, new insight into the truth, 
and the new emphasis put upon it) to contribute toward 
the full-orbed realization of Christianity. If it is des- 
tined to do so, I think it will be along the ethical or 
practical lines rather than the theological or meta- 
physical. Japan has produced no Plato or Aristotle; 
and whether the Church is going to have its Origen or 
Augustine is altogether problematical. A short time 
ago I was asked whether we were going to have a Jap- 
anese theology ; and my reply was, before we could 
have Japanese theology we must have Japanese theo- 
logians. 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 289 

Ebina, Japan: — 

If by Christianity is meant the religious conscious- 
ness of Christ, then Christianity is the final religion. 
But it seems to me that that consciousness is a thing of 
growing apprehension ; not perfectly apprehended by 
the Apostles themselves, and after now nearly two 
thousand years not even yet so apprehended. But I 
think that in the future it will come to be perfectly 
apprehended, and will be the final religion for man. 

Uemura, Japan: — 

The Christianity of the New Testament is the final 
religion of man; neither to be modified nor supple- 
mented by contact with the non-Christian religions. 

But Christ is greater than any thought regarding 
Him. He is always coming. In a true sense He is still 
an undiscovered country. In Him are all the treasures 
of wisdom and knowledge hidden ; and in the contact of 
Christianity with the thought of the Orient some of the 
things of Christ will be brought into a clearer light 
than ever before, and the nations will walk in that light. 

In the thought of Japan, for example, there is a one- 
ness — a solidarity — in both the family and the state that 
is not present to the thought of the West. That deep 
sense of oneness will easily extend from the family and 
the state to the race ; and it will give to the incarnation 
and the vicarious atonement a new depth, a new reason- 
ableness, a new hold upon the mind. As never before, 
they will be seen to be the wisdom and power of God ; 
and with the new light there will flow from them a new 
river of life. It is often said that the incarnation and 
the vicarious atonement are peculiarly foreign to the 
Japanese mind. Apparently that is so, but only appar- 
ently. The future will show that in reality the opposite 
is true. My own belief is that Christian theology in 
Japan has before it a development that will be a real 
contribution to Christian thought; but it will not be by 
borrowing from the non-Christian religions or by 
accommodating itself to them. 



290 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Honda, Japan:- — 

It may be that the Japanese mind will find in Chris- 
tianity certain elements to which it will be drawn with 
peculiar power, and to which it will give an emphasis 
of its own; though just what those elements are is not 
yet evident. But that the essentials of Christianity will 
be modified or supplemented by contact with the non- 
Christian religions is unlikely, and any such result 
would be a loss and not a gain. 

Watanabe, Japan: — 

According to our conviction, there is no religion in 
the world of to-day better than Christianity, but Chris- 
tianity in its present form cannot possibly claim to have 
perfectly discovered Christ's genuine nature. We 
believe that there will come a time when Christianity 
will reveal Christ better than in these days. We are 
unable, however, to predict in what way or by what 
process that evolution will be attained. 

Kil, Korea: — 

The final perfect religion, because no man, however 
gifted, can add anything to the Scriptures, and no com- 
bination is satisfactory. The Korean Christians resent 
the preaching which is not Scriptural but merely philo- 
sophical or historical, saying that such is not "preach- 
ing" (kang-to) but "lecturing" (yun-sul). 

Tsen, China: — 

The Christian religion, pure and simple, is one left 
on earth by Christ, the Son of God, all in principle and 
not in any kind of detail. And yet it is all perfect and 
final, but just as an infant is a perfect, well-formed 
human being. The infant has to take food in material 
form, plant food or animal food, to convert the same 
into the child, to make them part of it. So has Chris- 
tianity to take in, reform, convert, yea sanctify all the 
good customs, rites, conceptions, morals and doctrines 
of all other religions, or originated from them. When 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 291 

that which is perfect is come, that which is in part — 
knowledge of God and truth — shall be done away in the 
gradual process of assimilation and perfection. 

Mukerji, India: — 

The questioner has in view, I believe, the loose talk 
of Western and Eastern Christianity, and the like. The 
method of presenting Christianity will doubtless change 
with the country and the times, but not the body of the 
message. The questioner is right in refusing to accept 
anything as the norm of Christianity except the New 
Testament Christianity. Sometimes one hears in India 
the statements that the Gospel of John is more suited 
to the genius of the people than that of the Synoptics. 
Back of it is the feeling, I suspect, that salvation in 
John is through knowledge and not the atonement, and 
that the body of the Gospel message needs revising. 
It will be time enough to think of such an attempt 
when we have manufactured another Gospel. 

Siraj ud Din, India: — 

Yes, I believe the revelation of God as presented in 
the New Testament to be complete and final. From 
the contact with the East there can result no modifica- 
tion in the sense of addition or alteration. But our 
eyes need being opened more and more to the vision of 
the Christ, not only the Christ who lived on this earth 
two thousand years ago, but the eternal Christ who is 
from the beginning, the Logos, the Creator, the true 
Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world, the Christ who is the desire of all nations ; and 
this enlargement of vision will surely result from an 
Oriental-Occidental interpretation of the primarily 
Oriental Christ. The contact between the East and the 
West will result in the discovery of deep and philo- 
sophic meanings in the fundamental truths of Chris- 
tianity, such as the trinity, the atonement and the 
incarnation. So far as these doctrines are ever going 
to be scientifically or philosophically demonstrated, the 



292 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Oriental thought will mightily help this demonstration. 
Particularly Sufiism among the Mohammedans and 
Vedantism among the Hindus will greatly enrich and 
expand the Occidental conception of these truths of 
Oriental birth. In fact these truths, with their wonder- 
ful demonstrations, already exist both in the Hindu and 
the Mohammedan religions, buried under the mass of 
other teachings. How they came there is perhaps as 
mysterious and inscrutable as the nature of these sacred 
truths, but they are there. In the contact between the 
East and the West, the West will discover the deep 
philosophic meaning of which the reality has been 
divested for so long, and the East will discover the 
reality which alone can give significance to these truths 
so precious to the Oriental soul. 

Tke It appears, accordingly, that these men, earnest 

Significant and thoughtful, and as capable of judging the 
matter as any men in the West, and with far 
richer and more reliable material and vastly 
better opportunities for judgment, have found 
the non-Christian religions, which they knew at 
first hand, to be inadequate, and Christianity to 
be entirely adequate; that they know of no cor- 
rections or supplements which Christianity needs 
and can obtain from the non-Christian religions; 
that Christianity is in their view the absolute 
world religion, and that there are no distinctions 
between the Oriental and Western consciousness, 
no fixed lines of cleavage between East and West, 
no barriers of race or temper or tradition which 
justify separate provincial or ethnic religions, or 
forbid the hope and the duty of effecting through 
Christ and in Christ the unification of mankind. 



Conclusion. 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 293 

Such evidence, and the convincing conclusions 
which flow from it, reveal afresh the validity and 
the urgency of the missionary motive. These 
correspondents realized this in their answers to 
the further question, ''What are the missionary 
motives which should be pressed upon the Chris- 
tian church? " 

Kozaki, Japan: — 

The missionary motives to be pressed upon the 
Christian churches are these: (1) The inadequacy of 
the non-Christian religions to supply the religious and 
ethical needs of man. (2) The principle of Christian 
love. 

Uemura, Japan: — 

There are many familiar missionary motives that 
may properly be pressed upon the Christian churches, 
but there is one whose seriousness is too often lost sight 
of. Whatever possibilities the future may disclose, life 
out of Christ is without hope. 

Ebina, Japan: — 

Christianity is a religion for man; and the same 
motives that influence a Christian to proclaim Christ in 
America should influence him to proclaim Christ to the 
world — to give to the world a share in the higher 
experience that flows from the life in Christ. Asia is 
in the twilight, and needs the Light of Life. This is the 
spirit of Christ Himself. He says, I am the Light of 
the World and I give my life for you. 

BIBLE READING 

First Chapter of Colossians. 



294 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

QUESTIONS 

Why are the judgments of Christian converts in Asia 
as to the relation of Christianity to the non-Christian 
religions of special value? 

What is their view of the right of the non-Christian 
religions to be called "religions?" 

Do they regard Christianity as essentially different 
from other religions? If so, on what grounds? 

Upon what does the consensus of opinion think the 
emphasis should be laid, — the resemblances or the 
differences? 

Wherein are the non-Christian religions fundamen- 
tally unlike Christianity? 

What should be our attitude in Asia toward the non- 
Christian religions? 

Has Christianity penetrated the Asiatic mind, or is it 
futile to attempt, to convert the non-Christian peoples? 

Are the East and West incapable of mutual under- 
standing? 

Is there an Oriental consciousness radically unlike 
the Occidental consciousness? Is humanity two or one? 
Read Kipling's "Ballad of the East and West." 

Is Christianity final, or is it to be modified and 
supplemented by the non-Christian religions? 

What conclusions are to be drawn from the testimony 
of these competent witnesses? 

SELECTED REFERENCE BOOKS 

Townsend, "Asia and Europe," Putnam, 1910. 

Hall, "Christ and the Eastern Soul," University of 

Chicago Press, 1909. 
Hall, "Christ and the Human Race," Houghton Mifflin 

Company, 1906. 
Knox, "The Spirit of the Orient," Crowell, 1906. 
Lyall, "Asiatic Studies," Murray, 1898-99, 



ASIA'S OWN OPINION 295 

Jessup, "Kamil Abdul Messiah," Westminster Press, 

1899. 
Uchimura, "Diary of a Japanese Convert," Revell, 

1895. 
Hardy, "Life and Letters of Joseph Hardy Neesima," 

Houghton Mifflin Company, 1891. 
Taylor, "Pastor Hsi," China Inland Mission, 1907. 
Yung Wing, "My Life in China and America," Holt, 

1909. 
Brown, "Father Goreh, " Longmans, 1900. 
Dyer, "Pandita Ramabai," Revell, 1900. 
Mozoomdar, "The Oriental Christ," George H. Ellis, 

1883. 



CHAPTER VI 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT OF 
THE WORLD 



CHAPTER VI 

CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Such a comparison of Christianity with other The Necessity 

religions as we have been making is unavoidable, and Desira- 

and it is also highly desirable. It is unavoida- oility of 
ble because the very aim of the missionary enter- °™ pa . r . 

, . - „ r i i- ■ Christianity 

prise is to lead the followers of other religions wit ^ other 
to compare them with Christianity. Unless Religions, 
they make this comparison, they will not leave 
what is false in their old faiths and carry what 
is true in them forward into the fuller truth of 
Christianity, which is freedom from all falsehood 
and fulfillment of all truth. The whole work of 
missions is just this. It can only be done 
through such comparative presentation of the 
gospel as will fit it into the religious mind which 
it finds and will build all the materials it dis- 
covers which are capable of redemption into the 
new national faith it is to produce. The ideal 
of missions is to settle Christianity as an indig- 
enous and living power in each race, absorbing 
and glorifying all that is of worth in the past of 
the race, purging out all dr@ss and error, and 
relating its failures and achievements rightly to 
the destiny for which only Christianity can pre- 
pare it. Every element of the missionary under- 



300 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

taking calls for careful study of the religions 
which Christianity is to displace. 

And the support of missions at home also calls 
for such comparative study. We are told that the 
non-Christian religions are good enough for the 
non-Christian nations,— better for them, indeed, 
than Christianity would be; that in essential 
character all religions are one, and that human 
development, or the divine education of the races 
of men, if we prefer to call it so, has wrought 
out for the various peoples their own best and 
most adequate religious life. If we are to main- 
tain a missionary purpose in an atmosphere where 
such views are pressed upon us, and are to be 
prepared to win those who hold such views to 
abandon them and to take a share in the mission- 
ary undertaking, it can only be by such a 
thorough study of comparative religion as will 
candidly face all such propositions. 

If Christianity had anything to fear from such 
a comparison, this would be- an additional reason 
for making it. For the truth has nothing to fear 
from error or from any conflict with error. If 
Christianity could not face such tests it could only 
be because false elements had crept into Chris- 
tianity which could not be too soon removed. 
But as a matter of fact, Christianity has nothing 
to fear and a great deal to gain. The gain will 
not be in the addition of new treasures from the 
non-Christian religions, but in the development 
of its own latent treasures which include and 



CHRIST, THE 0NLTLIGH7 301 

exceed all other good. And its fear will not be 
of the discovery of the treasures of other reli- 
gions. "I make no secret," says Max Muller, in 
"The Science of Religion, " "that true Christian- 
ity seems to me to become more and more exalted 
the more we appreciate the treasures of truth 
hidden in the despised religions of the world. 
But no one can honestly arrive at that conviction 
unless he uses honestly the same measure for all 
religions. It would be fatal for any religion to 
claim an exceptional treatment, most of all for 
Christianity. Christianity enjoyed no privileges 
and claimed no immunities when it boldly con- 
fronted and confounded the most ancient and the 
most powerful religions of the world. Even at 
present it craves no mercy, and it receives no 
mercy from those whom our missionaries have to 
meet face to face in every part of the world ; and 
unless our religion has ceased to be what it was, 
its defenders should not shrink from this new 
trial of strength, but should encourage rather than 
depreciate the study of comparative theology. 

"And let me remark this, in the very beginning, 
that no other religion, with the exception, per- 
haps, of early Buddhism, would have favored the 
idea of an impartial comparison of the principal 
religions of the world — would have tolerated our 
science. Nearly every religion seems to adopt 
the language of the Pharisee rather than of the 
publican. It is Christianity alone which, as the 
religion of humanity, as the religion of no caste, 



802 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

of no chosen people, has taught us to respect the 
history of humanity as a whole, to discover the 
traces of a divine wisdom and love in the govern- 
ment of all the races of mankind, and to recog- 
nize, if possible, even in the lowest and crudest 
forms of religious belief, not the work of demon- 
iacal agencies, but something that indicates a 
divine guidance, something that makes us per- 
ceive, with St. Peter, 'that God is no respecter 
of persons, but that in every nation he that 
feareth Him and worketh righteousness is 
accepted with Him.' " 

The effect of all such comparisons, justly made, 
will only be to make us surer of our own faith. 
For while on grounds of our personal experience 
we are satisfied with Christianity as the absolute 
religion for us, we shall be far surer that it is 
meant to be the universal religion, and we shall 
value it the more highly as the noblest possible 
spiritual possession, and we shall have more 
adequate grounds for our personal faith in it, 
when we have fairly measured it against all other 
religions. For ''let us assume that our form of 
religion is the highest, as indeed every one 
thinks who sincerely believes in his religion, 
whether he be Mohammedan or Christian, Bud- 
dhist or Brahman, Zarathustrian or Confucian. 
You and I are convinced that the purest and 
most genuinely human form of religion has been 
brought to light by the gospel. But may it not 
be a blind faith? In the religion in which we 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 303 

have been brought up, the religion of our fathers, 
the religion of our youth, we have found con- 
solation and strength, a light upon our path, a 
stimulus to all that is good and great; we are 
grateful for it, and we have learned to love it; 
and so long as it is the source of our higher life 
and our purest happiness we shall never forsake it. 
"But others too have found the same in their 
religion. And the only inference we can draw 
from this is that our religion is the best for us, 
and theirs for them, from different points of 
view. Science may respect these beliefs, and 
even recognize their relative rights, but cannot 
allow them the validity of proofs. She desires 
to know and account for every conviction. And 
how can I know whether a religion is the highest 
without comparing it with others?" (Tiele, 
"Elements of the Science of Religion," First 
Series, p. 53.) It is only when we have made 
this comparison that we can appreciate the unique 
glory of Christianity. Just as the non-Christian 
religions only appear in their deep inadequacy 
when contrasted with Christianity, so "Chris- 
tianity cannot fully be understood unless viewed 
in relation to these religions. We must know 
what questions the human soul has been putting 
to itself in various ages, lands, and circumstances, 
and what are the answers it has been giving to 
them, before we can appreciate aright the com- 
prehensiveness and aptness of the response con- 
tained in the gospel. Not one of the features or 



304 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



Christianity 
Never Sur- 
renders Its 
Supreme 
Claims. 



doctrines of Christianity will fail to appear in a 
brighter light and with a diviner beauty after 
they have been compared and contrasted with the 
correlative features and doctrines of other reli- 
gions." (Professor Flint, quoted in "Homiletic 
Review," December, 1893. Article by D. S. 
Schaff on "The Parliament of Religions and the 
Christian Faith," p. 555.) 

It scarcely needs to be said, and yet common 
misunderstandings necessitate its saying, that in 
measuring itself on a level with all other reli- 
gions, Christianity does not abandon its claim to 
be unique and absolute. "When Christianity 
consented to have representatives sitting in the 
Parliament on terms of equality with every other 
religion," says a recent writer regarding the 
Parliament of Religions in 1893, "then con- 
sciously or unconsciously it gave up the claim of 
being the only true and divine religion in the 
world." (A. W. Martin in "The Unity of 
Religions," p. 331.) Whatever opinion we may 
hold about the Parliament of Religions, it is 
none the less true that in every mission field 
to-day Christianity is meeting the non-Christian 
religions on this basis of equality. In many 
cases, indeed, it is not admitted by them on terms 
of equality. But never for one moment does 
Christianity waive its claim to be "the only true 
and divine religion in the world." It recognizes 
truth wherever it finds it, whether in or out of 
religions. It believes that all the world is God's 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 305 

and that no nation and no soul has been out of 
His love. But it knows that the Name which it 
bears is the only Name given under heaven among 
men by which they are to be saved, and that unto 
Him shall the gathering of the nations be. It 
makes its comparisons with other religions in 
absolute candor and openness. But each new 
comparison only confirms the result of all which 
have gone before, and leaves Christianity with a 
clearer discernment of its own unique and abso- 
lute superiority. It vindicates afresh its effort to 
displace all other religions, on the ground that 
apart altogether from the evil and error which 
are found imbedded in each of them, "when that 
which is perfect is come, then that which is in 
part shall be done away." 

And if comparison is to be made between Nevertheless 
Christianity and the non-Christian religions, such It Undergoes 
as we have tried to make, and such as mission- an Absolutely 

, . , , . Fair and Just 

aries are making every day, and are ever inciting 
the followers of the non-Christian religions to 
make, this comparison must be absolutely just 
and fair. As far as Christians are concerned, 
this goes without saying. If it is not just and 
fair it is not Christian, and no truly Christian 
result can flow from it. We must not judge any 
religion by standards and methods whose appli- 
cation to our own religion we would resent. Let 
us note the feeling which we have on meeting 
with any untrue and unfair condemnation of 
Christianity, and learn from our resentment a 



306 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

just attitude toward others. When Swami Abhe- 
dananda returned to Madras from his Hindu 
mission to America, a large public meeting wel- 
comed him back, and in speaking to the gather- 
ing the Swami compared the Hindu religion with 
the other religions of the world and said, whereas 
Hinduism taught that to manifest divinity in all 
actions of daily life was true religion: Chris- 
tianity and other religions insisted on people 
believing certain set dogmas which failed to lay 
stress on conduct. In European and American 
countries the people donned religious garb only 
on a particular day of the week, and went to a 
place of worship for various purposes. For 
instance, he said, doctors went to church on 
Sundays to secure patients, lawyers to get clients, 
maids to find husbands, bachelors to find wives, 
and people in general to keep up appearances. 
As we reject such a representation as unfair and" 
untrue, let us first ask whether we -have ever 
passed similar confused and unjust judgments on 
other religions, and secondly let us ask whether 
there was no justification in our imperfect types 
of Christianity in the West for Abhedananda's 
misrepresentation. For consider how much there 
has been in the history of Christianity in the dark 
ages, and is now in South American Christianity, 
that the apologists for the non-Christian reli- 
gions can retort upon us. If, as Max Muller 
says, we ask "Was the worship of Moloch a true 
religion when they burnt their sons and their 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 307 

daughters in the fire to their gods? Was the 
worship of Mylitta, or is the worship of Kali a 
true religion, when within the sanctuary of their 
temple they committed abominations that must 
be nameless ? Was the teaching of Buddha a true 
religion, when men were asked to believe that the 
highest reward of virtue and mediation consisted 
in a complete annihilation of the soul?" Then 
the non-Christian peoples may turn and answer, 
"Can that be a true religion which consigned 
men of. holy innocence to the flames, because they 
held that the Son was like unto the Father, but 
not the same as the Father, or because they would 
not worship the Virgin and the saints? Can 
that be a true religion which screened the same 
nameless crimes behind the sacred walls of mon- 
asteries?" (Muller, "The Science of Religion," 
p. 115.) 

If we answer "No, it was not true, true Chris- 
tianity is so-and-so," we must be prepared to 
have them say, "Well, you must allow us also to 
make distinctions, and if you wish Christianity 
to be judged by its best, so you must judge our 
religions." If we meet non-Christian objections 
to Christianity by answers which satisfy us, we 
must be fair in allowing similar answers, as far 
as they can be made, in defence of what others 
hold dear. If we explain the laws, morals, and 
social ideals of the Hebrews, still commemo- 
rated in our Scriptures, on principles of develop- 
ment, we must fairly allow the same principle to 



&08 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

others ; and if with many of them the allowance 
is useless because the old is still preserved side 
by side with the new, the undeveloped beside the 
developed, we must be generous as well as just, 
remembering South America, and how much 
there is still with us in Protestant Christianity 
that is not of Christ. And if we hold the apos- 
tolic development of the gospel message to be 
legitimate, we must be fair in judging the 
expansive interpretations which the non-Christian 
faiths give of their foundations. We must make 
all the allowances in our attitude to other reli- 
gions which we demand of them in their attitude 
to ours. 
Tke Com- And we must recognize the real difficulties in 

parison of the way of fair comparisons. Abhedananda 
Religions might have been quite sincere in his judgment. 

And Uchimura writes in his "Diary":— 

Heathenism, like much of what passes for Chris- 
tianity in Christendom, teaches morality, and inculcates 
upon us the keeping of the same. It shows us the 
way, and commands us to walk therein. No more and 
no less. As for Juggernaut, infant-sacrifice, and so 
forth, let us eliminate them from our account of 
heathenism, for they are not it, — as mammon-worship, 
and infant-killing by other methods than that of throw- 
ing them to gavials, and other horrors and superstitions 
of Christendom are not Christianity. Therein let us be 
fair and forgiving in judging others. We will meet our 
enemy in his best and strongest. . . . 

It is said that the state of New York, with a popula- 
tion of 5,000,000, produces more murderers than Japan 
with 40,000,000 souls. General Grant's observation in 



Difficult, 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 309 

the latter country was that the number and state of its 
poor were nothing compared with what he saw in his 
own United States. London is proverbial for the mag- 
nitude of its pauperism, and Christendom generally for 
its gambling and drinking habits. Some of the alco- 
holic liquors that can satisfy the appetite of these 
people are strong enough to upset the heads of our 
drunkards, if taken in any considerable quantity. 
Scenes in those back streets of some of the largest cities 
of Christendom, which no decent men dare even to look 
into, can be described with no milder words than the 
vilest in any language. Shameless gamblings, open-day 
piracies, cool-blooded sacrifice of fellowmen for one's 
own aggrandizement, are being conducted there on 
gigantic, business-like scales. . . . 

"Christendom is a beastly land." So report some of 
my countrymen who have traveled abroad, and saw only 
its dark half. True,- they are unfair; but as far as the 
said beastliness goes, the impressions they have received 
are correct. Heathendom cannot compete with Chris- 
tendom in its beastliness as well. (Uchimura, "Diary 
of a Japanese Convert," pp. 177, 181, 183.) 

We point out in reply that Christianity does 
not shelter or excuse these evils, and that non- 
Christian religions do. But we are told that 
Christianity, in the dark ages, did shelter such 
things, and does still in South America. We 
have our answer to this, too, but the need of 
these answers only shows how hard the just com- 
parison really is. 

And we need to remember, also, that different Different 
peoples have different ideals and desires ; and Standards of 
that what seems to us a great virtue in Chris- Judgment, 
tianity may not at once appear so to an Asiatic, 



310 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Mr. Townsend in "Asia and Europe" illustrates 
this vividly, if somewhat hyperbolically : — 

The truth is that the Asiatics, like the Jews, dislike 
Christianity, see in it an ideal they do not love, a 
promise they do not desire, and a pulverizing force 
which must shatter their civilizations. Eternal con- 
sciousness! That to the majority of Asiatics is not a 
promise but a threat. The wish to be rid of conscious- 
ness, either by annihilation or by absorption in the 
Divine, is the strongest impulse they can feel. Though 
Asiatic in origin, Christianity is the least Asiatic of the 
creeds. Its acceptance would revolutionize the position 
of woman, which is the same throughout Asia, would 
profoundly modify all social life, and would place by 
the side of the spiritual dogma "thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God," which every Asiatic accepts in theory, the 
far-reaching ethical dogma, "and thy neighbor as thy- 
self," which he regards as an intolerable burden. 
("Asia and Europe," p. 35.) 

A Japanese paper presents another illustration 
in giving the impressions of America brought 
back to Japan by the deputation of Japanese 
business men who visited America in 1909. 
Among the things they could not admire they 
named "pretension to respect paid to ladies," 
"extreme respect for women," "too much 
respect for women, " "presumptuous attitude of 
women over men." 

And back of all these differences are funda- 
mental divergent conceptions of God ; the 
Asiatic, except the Mohammedan, shrinking from 
the divine personality, while the Christian view 
finds its very life in the sense of God as personal 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 311 

Father. Amid conceptions so widely divergent, 
fair comparisons are not easy. 

But the just comparison is possible when on The 
the one hand there is a mind for all common Acknowledg- 
truth, and on the other a fearless and honest dis- ment °* 
cernment of true difference. In dealing with ° m 

,. . , . . Contact. 

other religions in our own thought or in mis- 
sionary effort, Christians gladly recognize all 
that is good in them and build upon it. It is 
surely so in all missionary effort. "The surest 
way to bring a man to acknowledge his errors," 
says Bishop Bloomfield, "is to give him full 
credit for whatever he had learned of the truth." 
"What should we think," says a keen observer 
of the work of missions — "what should we think 
of an engineer who, in attempting to rear a 
lighthouse on a sandbar, should fail to acknowl- 
edge as a godsend any chance outcropping of 
solid rock to which he might fasten his stays?" 
(Ellinwood, "Oriental Religions and Chris- 
tianity," p. 20 f. ) If there were no truth to 
build upon, the missionary task would be hope- 
less. The absence of all truth would be evidence 
of the incapacity of the soul of such people for 
truth. It is not to irreligion and atheism that 
Christianity can best be addressed. In every land 
believers are won not so much from godlessness 
or religious indifference, as from superstition or 
from partial truth or from firm but inadequate 
conviction. "Who can learn a foreign language, 
unless he has a language of his own? We may 



312 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

acquire new languages from without; language 
and what it implies must come from within. 
The same with religion. Ask a missionary 
whether he can efficiently preach the mysteries 
of Christianity to people who have no idea of 
what religion is. All he can do is to discover 
the few germs of religion which exist even among 
the lowest savages, though hidden, it may be, 
beneath deep layers of rubbish ; to make them 
grow again by tearing up the weeds that have 
choked them, and then to wait patiently till the 
soil in which alone the natural seeds of religion 
can grow may become fit again to receive and to 
nurture the seeds of a higher religion. ' ' (Muller, 
"The Hibbert Lectures," 1878, p. 258.) 

Christianity rejoices, therefore, in all that it 
finds of earnest religious feeling or of worthy 
religious conviction, or of moral principle. It is 
glad to recognize the high ethical doctrine of 
Islam regarding drunkenness, of Buddhism 
regarding gentleness to all living things, of Con- 
fucianism regarding filial piety, and the fervent 
spiritual longings of Hinduism. It is prepared 
to place the highest construction upon other 
faiths, to contend that Mohammed's rejection of 
Christianity must be interpreted as the rejection 
of the debased Christianity he knew, and that 
Buddha's atheism was the denial of the impossible 
doctrine of God which alone was offered to him 
(Muller, "Hibbert Lectures," 1878, p. 304), 
and that back of much crude African feticbism 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 312 

and Chinese animism there is a recognition of 
one supreme God, the Creator of the world, after 
whom the soul is groping. Our Lord has taught 
us that the way to reach the best in men and to 
win men to their best, to the ideal of God for 
them, is to see in them the possibilities which 
are hidden even to themselves, and to claim these 
possibilities for them as their own. "Thou art 
Simon," he said to the vacillating and unreliable 
one, "Thou shalt be Rock." He saw in Simon 
the nobility which His influence could produce, 
and by confidence and love He made Simon that. 
All the truth or the unwitting error, or the pos- 
sibility of nobility that Christianity can discover 
in the religious longings of other peoples, or the 
answers which they have found to such longings, 
Christianity will seek out and use, knowing that 
they are humanity's testimony to the need of the 
world for Him who is the Light of the World 
and the Desire of the Nations. 

Comparison, however, calls for the discern- Tne Discern- 
ment of difference as well as of resemblance, ment of dif- 
"If, " says Jevons, "the student of the science of * erences - 
religion directs his attention primarily to the dis- 
covery of resemblances between religions which 
at first sight bear not more resemblance to one 
another than Greek did to the Celtic tongues, . . . 
there is still another aspect of the truth, and it is 
that between things which resemble one another 
there are also differences. And the jury of the 
world will ultimately demand to know the truth 



314 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

and the whole truth. . . . For the purposes of 
fair comparison not only must the resemblances, 
which the comparative method of science dwells 
on, be taken into account, but the differences 
also must be weighed. . . . For the practical 
purposes of the missionary it is important to begin 
with the resemblances; and on grounds of logic 
and of theory, the resemblances must be first 
established, if the importance, — nay, the decisive 
value, — of the differences is to go home to the 
hearts and minds of the missionary's hearers. 
The resemblances are there and are to be studied 
ultimately in order to bring out the differences 
and make them stand forth so plainly as to make 
choice between the higher form of religion and 
the lower easy, simply because the difference is 
so manifest." (Jevons, "Introduction to the 
Study of Comparative Religion," pp. 21, 22.) 

The differences are as radical and far reaching 
as the agreements. An able missionary to Mo- 
hammedans writes in a letter: — 

The effort of Moslems, if they are friendly, is usually 
to show that the two faiths are practically identical, and 
that consequently there is no superiority on the side of 
Christianity. It is an advantage, of course, to find com- 
mon ground, and the more common ground one can 
honestly discover the better, provided that one goes 
beyond the common ground to that which is not com- 
mon. In this it has seemed to me better to allow not 
merely what the individual presents, but all that can 
with any sort of propriety be claimed by Islam ; that is, 
in other words, framing one's argument so as to meet 
the strongest case that can be set up by the Moslem, 



CHRIST, THE ONLT LIGHT 315 

whether that case is actually presented or not. How- 
ever, allowing all that can with any propriety be allowed 
in the way of common ground, there is always the 
opportunity to go on and show how the two faiths 
differ. I do not believe that there is a single doctrine 
in which the teachings of the two religions are really 
identical. In admitting identity, the great danger is 
that the truth of Christianity should be minimized. For 
example, forgiveness by free grace is fundamental to 
both religions; but in Islam the basis is God's absolute 
will, and in Christianity it is His justice and righteous- 
ness manifested in the atonement. To stop at the 
common. ground will give the impression that there is 
no difference, and that in Christianity forgiveness is an 
act of God's absolute will. One needs also to discrimi- 
nate in the use of language and not to use terms which 
imply what he does not wish to imply. The uselessness, 
and sometimes worse than uselessness, of casual con- 
versation on religious and moral topics is in the fact 
that almost inevitably platitudes are indulged in which 
give the impression of an agreement, which is in reality 
specious and deceptive. 

And if a knowledge of the difference between 
Christianity and the non-Christian religions, as 
well as of the resemblances, is necessary for the 
missionary, it is necessary for Christians at home. 
The intensity of their desire to give Christianity 
to all the world will depend upon the strength and 
intelligence of their conviction that the world 
needs Christianity, and can have in Christ what it 
can never have through Ram or Krishna, or Buddha 
or Mohammed, or in any non-Christian religion. 
If there are no points of difference between 
Christianity and the non-Christian religions, or 



316 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

if the points of difference are unimportant, there 
is no need of foreign missions. It is the radical 
significance of these points of difference that 
justifies all that the missionary enterprise has cost 
and is still to cost. It is what the non-Christian 
people do not have that we are to give them. 
We are among them because we believe that 
Christianity is unique and indispensable and that 
there is all the difference between it and other 
religions that there is between Christ and other 
men. We are to make this difference an attrac- 
tion and appeal, and not a repulsion and offense; 
but we are not to obscure it. The difference is 
the whole issue. 
Different It is at this point that the missionary unbelief 

Opinions as to f t ne day meets us and denies the existence of 
,Jn e . at . lon any such fundamental difference or of any such 

of Christian- . . ,™ - 

. t Oth uniqueness or superiority on the part ot Chris- 
Religions, tianity as entitles it to claim supremacy over all 

mankind. 
"EachReli- Some take the view that in different ages and 

gion Best for a t different stages of personal and national de- 
ts wn ^ velopment, men have different religious needs 

Adherents. . . ., . .... in i 

and that a diversity of religions must be allowed 
for in order to cover these varying conditions of 
human society and of the human mind. "Who, 
if he is honest toward himself, " asks Max Muller, 
"could say that the religion of his manhood was 
the same as that of his childhood, or the religion 
of his old age the same as the religion of his man- 
hood? The question, therefore, is not whether 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 317 

there exist these great differences of religion in 
the different stages of each life, and in the dif- 
ferent ranks of society, but whether we shall 
frankly recognize the fact, as the ancient Brah- 
mans recognized it, and try to determine accord- 
ingly our position, not only toward those who 
use the same words in religion which we use, 
though with greatly varying meanings, but also 
toward those who do not even use the same 
words?" (Max Muller, "Hibbert Lectures," 
1878, p. 367.) And in "The Science of Reli- 
gion" the same writer says, "I feel convinced 
that the more we know of them (i. e., the ancient 
religions of mankind) the more we shall see that 
there is not one which is entirely false; nay, that 
in one sense every religion was a true religion, 
being the only religion that was possible at the 
time, which was compatible with the language, 
the thoughts, and the sentiments of each genera- 
tion, which was appropriate to the age of the 
world." ("The Science of Religion," p. 115.) 
We must, therefore, it is claimed, make allow- 
ances for other religions and their points of view 
and judge them relatively and not absolutely. "I 
maintain," says Muller, "that each phase of life 
must be judged by itself. Savages have their 
own vices, but they also have their own virtues. 
If the negro could write a black book against 
the white man, we should miss in it few of the 
crimes which we think peculiar to the savage. 
The truth is that the morality of the negro and 



818 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

the white man cannot be compared, because their 
views of life are totally different." ("Hibbert 
Lectures," 1878, p. 77.) 

So judged, Islam or Buddhism may be the best 
religion for a people at a certain stage in its de- 
velopment; nay, may be the only possible reli- 
gion. And the application of the principle to 
individuals can hardly be resisted, so that as one 
of the best known professors in the Imperial 
University in Tokyo put it, "as there are differ- 
ent sorts of tea, so there are different kinds of 
religion and each man chooses according to his 
taste." Nor are men to be reproached for not 
breaking with religions divinely suited to their 
own age and people, especially when statesmen 
from Christian nations advise them against it: 
Lord Curzon, for example, speaking to the Mo- 
hammedan students in Aligarh College, and say- 
ing, "Adhere to your own religion, which has in 
it the ingredients of great nobility and profound 
truth." ("Makhzan i Masihi," June 15, 1901.) 
This view of the providential basis of each reli- 
gion, and of its adequacy for its own age and race, 
need not theoretically cut the missionary nerve, 
for ages and racial conditions change, and this age 
and the world situation which we confront may 
require that Christianity be made the one religion 
of all; but as a matter of fact, those who hold this 
view think that tolerance and charity are the great 
words, and that they leave no room for the prose- 
lytism of foreign missions. This is not the view 



CHRIST, THE ONLT LIGHT 319 

of those who are trying to make the Christian 
religion the religion of all mankind, and to win 
the followers of all other religions to become fol- 
lowers of Christ. 

The matter is put somewhat differently by "AllRelig- 
others, who hold that fundamentally all religions ion Essential- 
are alike. The essential question is one not of * y ^ ne ' k° w ~ 

d. • i , e t- uTi. • • i j i.* ■>■> ever Different 

lgions but o± religion. It is indeed certain, _ „ . 

fe fe Religions 

said the heads of the six Buddhist sects united in ^ a g e « 
the " Great Japan Buddhists' Union," in a letter 
addressed in 1900 to "Our revered ecclesiastical 
brethren" throughout the world, "that the forms 
of religion in the world are manifold. But it is 
equally certain that in spite of the dissimilarity 
of religions in their tenets, as well as in rites, — in 
short, in their external organization, — the funda- 
mental principles embodied in what we regard as 
the higher classes of religion, to say nothing of 
those which still remain undeveloped, are in all 
cases essentially, if not entirely, analogous." "I 
care little for external forms," said Professor 
Kume in his account of Shintoism, "and doubt 
whether there are any essential differences be- 
tween any of the religions of the world." "In 
this country," said the "New York Post," in an 
account of the visit to America in 1905 of the 
Hon. P. Ramanathan, solicitor general of Cey- 
lon, "interest in Mr. Ramanathan may center 
upon the fact that he has struck out for himself a 
new line of thought and effort for the unification 
of Eastern and Western ideals — the establishment 



320 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

of the fundamental identity of the religious sys- 
tems of the East and the West." (The "New 
York Evening Post," July 22, 1905.) There 
is left on this basis no warrant for the effort on 
the part of one religion to displace or supersede 
or absorb another. Each one has as good claim 
to supremacy as the rest. The recognition of 
essential unity or of the balance of things equally 
good is what is demanded of us. We may let a 
Hindu paper answer this view for us before we 
take it up in more detail. Commenting upon 
Dr. Barrows' position in his Haskell Lectures in 
India, the "Indian Social Reformer," of Madras, 
remarked : — 

It has, we see, been made a point against Dr. Barrows 
that he claims a position for Christianity superior to 
that of any other religion. We are, of course, not pre- 
pared to concede that claim. But we never expected 
that Dr. Barrows would condescend to waive that claim 
for his own faith, and if he had done so, we, for one, 
should not have very much cared to listen to what he 
has to say. 

And we regard as the outcome of sheer intellectual 
indolence and pusillanimity, the opinion which is fash- 
ionable now-a-days that one conviction, one faith, is as 
good as another. We regard this easy-going fashion of 
mind as fraught with the greatest danger to the future 
of this country. For it means isolation ; it spells death. 
The vice, wherever and in whatever form it prevails, is 
the child of pure selfishness. 

The religion of the future will no doubt have affinities 
with each of the existing religions, just as the human 
race has affinities with the anthropoid apes. We, there- 
fore, welcome Dr. Barrows' statement of the claims of 
his faith. If they are exaggerated or imaginary, they 



CHRIST, THE ONLT LIGH1 321 

will go to the wall of their own accord. If they are 
real, on the other hand, it may so happen that some 
courageous souls that have been seeking the light and 
have not found it, may be impressed with them and may 
be led to transform themselves into the receptacles of a 
greatness such as an exalted religious idea alone can 
bestow. We invite our friends to give their unbiased 
hearing to Dr. Barrows. To be afraid of being con- 
verted to his views is cowardice. No man who is afraid 
of having to relinquish his prepossessions need call 
himself a religious man or a lover of truth. (Quoted 
in Introduction to Barrows Lectures, 1896-1897, "Chris- 
tianity the World Religion," p. xvi. f. ) 

Still another way of putting the matter is in "EactReli- 
the words of a Hindu correspondent of "The gion a Way 
Epiphany," in Calcutta, that "Christianity is not to God. 
the only way revealed by God, but Hinduism is 
also the way to God." In a remarkable sermon 
on Hinduism, preached in the Scotch Kirk in 
Allahabad, February 20, 1876, Dr. Kellogg stated 
this view and answered it: — 

It is a very common opinion in our day, that all 
religions are of God ; that all contain somewhat of 
divine truth, with a greater or less admixture of human 
error. While it is not pretended that all religions are 
ferse equally good, it is often argued that they may be 
so relatively to the peoples who hold them; and that as 
one may reach a city from several different directions, 
by as many different roads, so may those who in every 
religion sincerely worship God as they apprehend Him 
to be, attain to whatever of blessedness a future life 
may have in store. Those who think and talk after this 
fashion usually assume that in fundamental matters 
there is not so much difference in various religions as 
theologians try to make out, and that the differences 



322 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

which do exist pertain not to the essence, but to the 
form ; not to the necessary, but to the accidental in 
religion. Hence it is argued that it is a gross breach 
of charity for us to assume that Hindus and others 
have not the true knowledge of God as well as our- 
selves, and that it is a foolish superstition which attrib- 
utes divine inspiration to Moses and Paul, while deny- 
ing a similar inspiration to Sakya Muni, Gautama, or 
Kapila. And, it is again argued, quite correctly, if 
these premises be granted, that we might spend our 
time and money better than in seeking to persuade 
Hindus and others to abandon the ancestral faith 
which God has given to their race for an alien religion, 
however good that alien faith may be. 

But all this talk and all such arguments rest upon an 
assumption which is utterly false. It is not true that 
the differences, e. g., between Hinduism and Christianity, 
are merely superficial and accidental. They respect, not 
accidentals, but essentials. They are of such a sort that 
;f one religion gives a true account of God, the other 
gives a false account of Him. The God of the Hindus 
is not the God of the Christian. The salvation which 
the Hindu seeks is not the salvation which we seek. 
It is a salvation from personal existence, and not a 
salvation from sin ; and the ways prescribed for the 
attainment of this supreme good are as opposed as are 
the objects sought. Grant, if you please, that the city 
has different gates, and many avenues conduct men to 
it; still, if that city lie in the south, we shall never 
reach it by traveling northeast. Contradictories cannot 
both be true. And in regard to- the most fundamental 
matters, Hinduism contradicts, not merely Christianity, 
but all natural religion as well. (Kellogg, "Hin- 
duism," p. 4 f. ) 

The four points which Dr. Kellogg selected 
as illustrating the fundamental divergent positions 
of Christianity and Hinduism were (1) the per- 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 323 

sonality of God, (2) the existence, separate and 
distinct from God, of man, the world and all 
things therein, (3) the freedom of the will, (4) 
the trustworthiness of our consciousness as to our 
own personality and the reality of the external 
world, Christianity affirming and Hinduism deny- 
ing each of these four fundamental truths. And 
what more fundamental and essential difference 
could there be than that between pure Buddhism 
and Christianity over the existence of God? 
"The fact cannot be disputed away," says Max 
Muller, "that the religion of Buddha was from 
the beginning purely atheistic." ("The Science 
of Religion," p. 52.) If there is not a radical 
distinction between theism and atheism, between 
God and the denial of God, what distinctions are 
possible? Black becomes white, yes becomes no, 
in a world where pure Buddhism and Christianity 
are viewed as essentially alike. How can a religion 
which annihilates God be a way to God? 

One other common way of regarding the world "The Final 
religions is the view of those who would combine Religion tote 
them, — who regard the great task of our day, as a Symphony 
Mr. Ranade told Dr. Fairbairn in India, to be ° . . 

.Religions. 

a work of fusion." Some, like Max Muller, 
picture the union in architectural metaphor: — 

The science of religion, which at present is but a 
desire and a seed, will in time become a fulfillment and 
a plenteous harvest. 

When that time of harvest has come, when the 
deepest foundations of all the religions of the world 



324 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

have been laid free and restored, who knows but that 
those very foundations may serve once more, like the 
catacombs, or like the crypts beneath our old cathedrals, 
as a place of refuge for those who, to whatever creed 
they may belong, long for something better, purer, 
older and truer than what they can find in the statutable 
sacrifices, services, and sermons of the days in which 
their lot on earth has been cast; some who have learnt 
to put away childish things, call them genealogies, 
legends, miracles or oracles, but who cannot part with 
the childlike faith of their heart. 

Though leaving much behind of what is worshiped or 
preached in Hindu temples, in Buddhist viharas, in 
Mohammedan mosques, in Jewish synagogues, and 
Christian churches, each believer may bring down with 
him into that quiet crypt what he values most — his own 
pearl of great price: the Hindu his innate disbelief in 
this world, his unhesitating belief in another world ; 
the Buddhist his perception of an eternal law, his sub- 
mission to it, his gentleness, his pity; the Mohamme- 
dan, if nothing else, at least his sobriety; the Jew his 
clinging, through good and evil days, to the One God, 
who loveth righteousness, and whose name is "I am"; 
the Christian, that which is better than all, if those 
who doubt it would only try it — our love of God, call 
Him what you like, the infinite, the invisible, the im- 
mortal, the Father, the highest Self, above all, and 
through all, and in all, — manifested in our love of man, 
our loving of the living, our love of the dead, our living 
and undying love. 

That crypt, though as yet but small and dark, is 
visited even now by those few who shun the noise of 
many voices, the glare of many lights, the conflict of 
many opinions. Who knows but that in time it will 
grow wider and brighter, and that the Crypt of the Past 
may become the Church of the Future. ("Hibbert 
Lectures," p. 377 f.) 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 325 

Some, like Castelar, express the unity in more 
varied figure. "Do not," said he, "separate the 
various revelations of truth, for together they 
form that invisible atmosphere which is called 
the human spirit. The prophets did not speak in 
Judea alone, they drank not only the waters of 
the Jordan and the Euphrates ; but they spoke 
also in India, and they' drank also the waters of 
the Ganges. The Egyptian sorcerers, the Magi 
of Babylon and the Dualists of Persia all con- 
tributed to the great Idea, which is like sap, like 
blood, like light, like electricity, like the juices 
of the earth, like the gases of the air, like the 
fluids of the universe. The Idea recognizes 
neither nations, sects nor churches ; it passes from 
pagoda to pyramid, from pyramid to synagogue, 
from synagogue to basilica, from basilica to cathe- 
dral, from cathedral to tribune, with a course 
like that of the lightning. The way for Chris- 
tianity was prepared by the verses of Isaiah and 
the dialogues of Plato, and every human family 
has contributed its contingent to the universal 
revelation." (Article in "The Independent," 
May 31, 1894, by Emilio Castelar, "The Parlia- 
ment of Religions in America.") 

Still others dream of symphonizing the world's 
religions. "Each one of the seven great religions 
that exists in the world to-day," says a recent 
book, "has its particular note, and the harmonious 
blending of the notes gives us a genuine symphony 
of religions. Listen to each one of the notes 



326 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

that each of these seven religions sounds." And 
what are the notes? From Hinduism the note of 
spirit, absolutely abrogating the idea that there 
is any such thing as "dead" matter, "brute" 
matter, because "the whole world of matter is 
thrilling, throbbing, pulsing with divine energy 
and divine meaning"; from Buddhism, the note 
of "renunciation"; from Zoroastrianism, the 
note of conflict and victory; from Confucianism, 
the note of order; from Judaism, the note of 
righteousness ; from Mohammedanism, the note 
of submission; from Christianity, the note of 
love. Or, the writer goes on, the figure may be 
changed and all the religions of the world likened 
to separate prismatic colors which are to be 
blended in the "pure white ray of universal 
religion. ' ' That religion — the same writer 
changes the metaphors once more — "can only 
come slowly, gradually, spontaneously by an 
organic, evolutionary process, — each one of the 
great extant religions dying a sectarian death in 
order that it may survive in spiritual substance." 
(A. W. Martin, in "The Unity of Religions, " p. 
333 f.) 

As we have already seen, Christianity seeks 
and rejoices in all the truth it can find anywhere, 
but its joy is not in the discovery of truth that is 
new to it. All the truth of the other religions 
it already knows. These "notes," so far as they 
are true, are all in Christianity. It is the sym- 
phony. No other religion strikes any single note 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 327 

as truly as it is already struck in Christianity. It 
is already the pure white light of the universal 
religion. The truth of other religions will be 
absorbed in it, but they cannot make it. And 
Christianity is already the temple. No other 
■ religion can supply arches or columns which the 
temple does not already possess. The glory of 
the temple will only be full when all nations 
bring their honor into it, but this will be only 
the perfect use of a temple already perfect; not 
the enlargement of a building that awaits any 
stones unhewn by the hands of Christ. 

But if we may not take any of these views of What are 
the non-Christian religions in their relation to We to 
Christianity, if we are to hold the missionary Think of 
view that Christ is the sole and sufficient teacher _. e ? on ~ 

. Christian 

and Saviour of mankind, and that Christianity is Regions? 
the final and absolute religion, then what are we 
to think of the non-Christian religions? Are 
they the work of the evil one, misleading men 
from their true allegiance, or are they part of the 
divine education of humanity, leading men on 
to the fuller light? Are they schoolmasters to 
bring men to Christ? Thinking of them 
as systems, with error and falsehood wrought in 
with truth, and of this error and falsehood as 
working out the inevitable and terrible effects 
which must always follow the sanctification of 
what is false and wrong, some students of com- 
parative religion have seen in the non-Christian 
religions the handiwork of evil. "It cannot be, " 



328 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

says Mr. Tisdall, "that the same tree has pro- 
duced the abominations associated with the wor- 
ship of Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Mylitta, Cybele, 
Ashtoreth, on the one hand, and Christianity, 
purity and lofty conception of the Divine on the 
other. To believe that the vile idea of phallic 
worship, so all but universal in the Gentile 
world, is due to the same source whence sprang 
the conception of the Holy God of Israel, is 
possible only to the perverted intellect. ' ' (Tisdall, 
"Comparative Religion," p. 69.) 

"It is quite popular in some circles," says 
Bishop Thoburn, "and is supposed by many to 
savor of learning and philosophy, to scout the old 
Christian idea that all the great religions of the 
world except Christianity are the offspring of the 
devil, and to hold in its place the preposterous 
view that they were all originated and developed 
by God Himself; that they all have been, and still 
are, serving their purpose, each in its own sphere, 
in the education of the human race, and all 
jointly contributing to what might be called the 
religious evolution of mankind. For one, I con- 
fess to a little impatience with this kind of so- 
called philosophy. I have no more respect for 
Mohammedanism as a system than for Mormon- 
ism. I do not believe that God had any more to 
do with the foundation of the one system than of 
the other, nor do I believe that He was in any way 
more responsible for the origin and development 
of Brahminism or Buddhism than for the origin 



CHRIST, THE ONI Y LIGHT 329 

of the worship of Baal, or the sacred animals of 
Egypt. It is simply nonsense to talk in this way 
with the facts of the religious life of the race 
spread out before us as they are. That God has 
had much to do in guiding, restraining, and 
oftentimes resisting, the progress of these various 
systems, everyone will admit who believes in the 
divine administration of the government of this 
world; but to make the Judge of all the earth 
responsible for sin, and folly, and error, and 
falsehood, and injustice, and iniquity in a thou- 
sand forms, is a kind of philosophy which intel- 
ligent Christians can well afford to discard." 
(Thoburn, "Missionary Addresses," "The Moral 
State of the Heathen," p. 78 f.) 

These are the judgments forced upon men who 
have given their lives for the non-Christian 
peoples, when they look at the evils which are an 
integral part of the non-Christian religions as 
systems. But when these same men turn to the 
good which they see about them, they are quick 
to recognize that as of God. All that we find, 
in whatever ethnic faith, that evinces any long- 
ing for communion between man and his Maker, 
every noble sentiment of poet or philosopher, 
every instinct which leads men to look above and 
beyond the grave, is welcome as a sign that God's 
grace was all the time working in men's hearts, 
that, though feebly and amid many fearful mis- 
takes, some portion of the race — every one, in 
whatever tribe or nation, who sought God — was 



330 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

receiving a divinely imparted education. (Tis- 
dall, "Comparative Religion," p. 86.) 

When we take the truth of Christianity as an 
hypothesis. Mr. Tisdall adds, all becomes plain. 
"We see that false ideas are perversions of true 
ones, evil practices corruptions of good. We 
perceive light shining amidst the gloom. Even 
the abominations of human sacrifice, and the 
cannibal rites too often associated with it, are 
seen to have a great truth underlying them." 
(P. 123.) The gloom itself is proof of light and 
a call to the light. 
The View of And it is just because missionaries do believe 
the Edinburgh so surely in the absoluteness of Christianity, and 
Missionary are so c j ear t } iat none f the evil of the world can 
be of God, that they are able to deal in love with 
what is false and imperfect and to see and exalt 
whatever they find of good. We cannot do better 
than try to take up their attitude as it is described 
in the Report of the World Missionary Confer- 
ence at Edinburgh, of the Commission on "The 
Missionary Message in Relation to Non-Christian 
Religions." In summing up the remarkable 
body of evidence gathered from missionaries 
dealing with all the non-Christian religions, the 
Report says: — 

There are two very notable points in that evidence 
which may be noticed in this place. The first of these 
is the practically universal testimony that the true atti- 
tude of the Christian missionary to the non-Christian 
religions should be one of true understanding and, as 
far as possible, of sympathy. That there are elements 



CHRIST, THE ONLT LIGHT 331 

in all these religions which lie outside the possibility of 
sympathy is, of course, recognized, and that in some 
forms of religion the evil is appalling is also clear. 
But nothing is more remarkable than the agreement that 
the true method is that of knowledge and charity, that 
the missionary should seek for the nobler elements 
in the non-Christian religions and use them as steps to 
higher things; that, in fact, all these religions, without 
exception, disclose elemental needs of the human soul 
which Christianity alone can satisfy, and that in their 
higher forms they plainly manifest the working of the 
Spirit of God. On all hands the merely polemic and 
iconoclastic attitude is condemned as radically unwise 
and unjust. 

But, along with this generous recognition of all that 
is true and good in these religions, there goes also the 
universal and emphatic witness to the absoluteness of 
the Christian faith. Superficial criticism might say that 
these two attitudes are incompatible, that if Christianity 
alone is true and final, all other religions must be false, 
and that as falsehoods they should be denounced as 
such. 

Against that criticism we may, in the first place, set 
the massive fact that the great weight of evidence before 
us shows that these witnesses do not feel this contra- 
diction. 

Deeper consideration of the facts indeed leads us to 
the conviction that it is precisely because of the strength 
of their conviction as to the absoluteness of Christianity 
that our correspondents find it possible to take this 
more generous view of the non-Christian religions. 
They know that in Christ they have what meets the 
whole range of human need, and therefore they value 
all that reveals that need, however imperfect the revela- 
tion may be. 

This very charity and tolerance, on the other hand, 
makes more impressive the agreement as to the abso- 



332 THE LTGH7 OF THE WORLD 

luteness and finality of Christ. Nowhere is the slightest 
support found for the idea that Christianity is only one 
religion among others, or that all religions are simply 
dfferent ways of seeking the one Father, and are there- 
fore equally pleasing in His sight. One massive con- 
viction animates the whole evidence that Jesus Christ 
fulfills and supersedes all other religions, and that the 
day is approaching when to Him every knee shall bow 
and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory 
of God the Father. 

Christianity But if we are to attain this position and to go 

tke Final and out from these studies with a firmer motive and a 

Absolute larger purpose, we must look fairly at some of the 

e igion. conclusions of this comparison of the world's 

religions which bear on the claim of Christianity 

to be the final and absolute religion of the world. 

The Only 1- In the first place it is a significant fact that 

Religion Ex- Christianity is the only religion which is trying 

employing ^ Q ma ke good its claim to universalism. None 

of the non-Christian religions is making any real 



Universality. 



effort to do so. Mohammedanism is spreading 
in Africa and India, but it makes no effort of any 
significance to convert America or Europe or 
Japan. The bounds of Confucianism are con- 
tracting. Shintoism has withdrawn from the 
lists as a religion, and claims now only the place 
of a court ceremonial and a burial rite. Zoroas- 
trianism, one of the worthiest of the ancient 
religions, has almost vanished in the land of its 
origin, and numbers comparatively few adherents 
in India. Hinduism is geographically limited, 
save as a philosophy, by its principle of caste, and 



CHRIST, THE ONLT LIGHT 333 

Buddhism is rejected in Japan by the very men 
who might succeed in propagating it elsewhere. 
But Christianity is moving out over all the earth 
with steadily increasing power, with ever mul- 
tiplying agencies, with ever enlarged devotion, 
and with open and undiscourageable purpose to 
conquer the world. And not less significant 
than the fact of Christianity's missionary purpose, 
is the method of it. With no trust in secular 
support, in spite of all slanders which charge 
otherwise, with purely moral agencies and with 
fair comparison of its treasures with anything 
that the world can offer, Christianity goes fear- 
lessly forth to deal with all the life and thought 
of man and to solve his problems and meet his 
needs in the name and strength of God. One 
single illustration may suffice to show the differ- 
ence between its competence and philosophic 
candor and the incompetence and partial plead- 
ing of the other religions. It concerns the fun- 
damental question as to what are the tests of a 
revelation. This is the answer of the Catechism 
of the Arya Samaj, representing the purest exist- 
ing form of Vedic religion: — 

1. It should not conflict with the natural laws. 

2. It ought to comprise precepts which are conform- 
able to the divine attributes. 

. 3. It contains the germs of all the true sciences. 

4. It should be communicated as soon as the world 
comes into existence. 

5. The divine commandments it contains must not be 
contradictory to one another. 



334 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

6. It should not instruct us to believe in a mediator, 
saviour or prophet who pretends to secure for us heaven 
or hell. 

7. It must be inspired in the language which is not 
spoken in any country lying on the surface of the earth. 

8. It embraces no historical and biographical events. 

9. It should be compatible with true sciences and its 
principles should stand to reason. 

10. It does not sanction the killing of animated 
beings. 

Compare this with the answer of the Christian 
philosopher meeting Hinduism with the Christian 
message: — 

1. What is the idea of God revealed and what power 
has that idea had upon individual and social life? 

2. What is the character of those who have assisted 
in propagating the revelation? 

3. What is the progressive character of the religion 
based on the revelation? Has it shown itself capable of 
keeping pace with the advance of civilization? 

4. What is the character of its founder as revealer, 
and inspirer and redeemer of men? 

5. What is the spiritual effect of the revelation 
upon those who sincerely act upon it? 

(From Lecture of Prof. George T. Ladd on "Revela- 
tion and Inspiration," delivered in Madras, February, 
1900. ) 

Christianity alone possesses credentials to 
absolutism and finality which it can present and 
is presenting to the world. 
Its Unique 2. At the root of all things is the idea of God. 

and Superior Here all religions meet to be judged. "The 
Idea of God. truth and the good inherent in all forms of reli- 
gion is that, in all, man seeks after God. The 



CHRIST, THE ONLT LIGHT 335 

finality of Christianity lies in the fact that it re- 
veals the God for whom man seeks." (Jevons, 
"Introduction to the Study of Comparative Reli- 
gion," p. 258.) The best that can be said of any 
non-Christian religion is that it is seeking for 
that which Christianity possesses, — the true and 
perfect God. "The conception of God," says 
Dr. William Newton Clarke, "with which Chris- 
tianity addresses the world, is the best that man 
can form or entertain." If it is asked, "What is 
that excellence in Christianity by virtue of which 
it is entitled to be a missionary religion and de- 
serves to be received by all men?" — the answer 
is: — 

Christianity is entitled to be a missionary religion and 
to displace all other religions, because of its God. 

There are many glories in the religion of Jesus 
Christ, and it can do many services for men ; but its 
crowning glory, or rather the sum of all its glory, is its 
God. Christianity has such a conception of God as no 
other religion has attained; and, what is more, it pro- 
claims and brings to pass such an experience of God as 
humanity has never elsewhere known. It is in this that 
we find that superiority which entitles Christianity to 
offer itself to all mankind. 

It is necessary to tell in few words what this God is 
who is the glory of Christianity and the ground of its 
boldness in missionary advances, — this God so infinitely 
excellent that all men may well afford to forget all their 
own religions, if they may but know Him. The God of 
Christianity is one, the sole source, Lord and end of all. 
He is holy, having in Himself the character that is the 
worthy standard for all beings. He is love, reaching 
out to save the world from sin and fill it with His own 
goodness. He is wise, knowing how to accomplish 



336 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

His heart's desire. He is Father in heart, looking upon 
His creatures as His own, and seeking their welfare. 
All this truth concerning Himself He has made known 
in Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world, in Whom His 
redemptive will has found expression, and His saving 
love has come forth to mankind. . . . 

Set over against this conception of God the 
views which we have seen that the non-Christian 
religions take of Him, and it does not need to be 
shown that the religion of the Christian God 
has supreme rights among men. 

A religion that can proclaim such a God, and pro- 
claim Him on the ground of experience, is adapted to 
all men, and is worthy of all acceptation. Since Chris- 
tianity is the religion of such a God, Christianity 
deserves possession of the world. It has the right to 
offer itself boldly to all men, and to displace all other 
religions, for no other religion offers what it brings. It 
is the best that the world contains. Because of its 
doctrine and experience of the perfect God, it is the 
best that the world can contain. Its contents can be 
unfolded and better known, but they cannot be essen- 
tially improved upon. At heart, Christianity is simply 
the revelation of the perfect God, doing the work of 
perfect love and holiness for His creatures, and trans- 
forming men into His own likeness so that they will do 
the works of love and holiness towards their fellows. 
Than this nothing can be better. Therefore, Christianity 
has full right to be a missionary religion, and Christians 
are called to be a missionary people. (Clarke, "A 
Study of Christian Missions," pp. 10, 11, 19.) 
Its Ricknesa ^* From its unique and adequate conception of 

God, it follows that Christianity has a message 
to the world which is full of notes which the 
non-Christian religions do not and cannot possess. 



CHRIST, THE ONLT LIGHT 337 

Even ideas which some of these religions share 
with Christianity, such as "belief in an after life, 
in the difference between right and wrong, and 
that the latter deserves punishment; in the need 
of an atonement for sin; in the efficacy of prayer; 
in the universal presence of spiritual powers of 
some kind" (Tisdall, "Comparative Religion, " 
p. 91) ; belief in the sovereignty of God, in the 
immanence of God, in the transitoriness and 
vanity of this earthly life on one hand, and in 
the infinite significance of this life and the sacred- 
ness of the human order on the other, — have a 
relationship and a significance in Christianity, 
with its perfect God, which makes them totally 
different from the conceptions of other religions. 
And beside these, Christianity has a whole world 
of conceptions of its own, — the fatherhood of 
God, the brotherhood of man, redemption, the 
incarnation of a personal God, atonement, char- 
acter, service, fellowship. And "Christianity 
alone of the religions of the world teaches that 
self-sacrifice is the way to life eternal." 
(Dennis, "The Message of Christianity," p. 28; 
Jevons, "Introduction to the Study of Compara- 
tive Religion," p. 69.) Some of these ideas are 
so great and so distinctive that they must be 
looked at separately. 

4. In its conception of sin, in its provision its Conception 
for sin's forgiveness and defeat, and in its ideal of Sin and 
of salvation and the free offer of its salvation to Salvation, 
every man, Christianity is unique and satisfying. 



338 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Christianity sees sin as the supreme evil in the 
world, it regards it as a want of conformity to the 
perfect will of God, or as transgression of His 
perfect law; it teaches that sin is not a matter of 
act only, but also of thought and desire and will, — 
a taint in the nature; it insists that God is not 
responsible for it or for any evil; it emphasizes 
the guilt and horror of it, and the deadly con- 
sequences both for time and for eternity, and it 
opens to man a way of full forgiveness and of 
clean victory. In contrast with this view, Mo- 
hammedanism teaches that sin is only the wilful 
violation of God's law; sins of ignorance it does 
not recognize; its doctrine of God's sovereignty 
fixes the responsibility for sin on God and dis- 
solves the sense of guilt, and it denies the evil 
taint of sin in human nature. In Hinduism sin 
as opposition to the will of a personal God is 
inconceivable; it is the inevitable result of the 
acts of a previous state of being; it is evil, because 
all existence and all action, good as well as bad, 
are evil, and it is illusion, as all things are illu- 
sion. In pure Buddhism there can be no sin in 
our sense of the word, because there is no God ; 
sin there means "thirst, " "desire," and what 
Buddhism seeks to escape is not the evil of life 
only, but life itself; and its conception of the sins 
that impede, while including much that is im- 
moral, does not include all, and does include 
much on the other hand that has no immoral 
character at all. Confucianism makes no mention 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 339 

of man's relation to God, and totally lacks all 
conception of sin. In one word, Christianity is 
the only religion in the world which clearly 
diagnoses the disease of humanity and discovers 
what it is that needs to be healed and that 
attempts permanently and radically to deal with 
it. 

And so, also, Christianity alone knows what 
the salvation is which men require, and makes 
provision for it. In Christianity salvation is sal- 
vation from the power and the presence of sin, 
as well as from its guilt and shame. Its end is 
holy character and loving service. It is available 
for men here and now. In the Mohammedan 
conception salvation consists in deliverance from 
punishment, and deliverance not by redemption 
and the sacrifice of love, but by God's absolute 
sovereignty. The Hindu idea of salvation is to 
escape from the sufferings incident to life, to be 
liberated from personal, conscious existence, and 
this liberation is to be won by the way of knowl- 
edge, knowledge being the recognition of the 
soul's essential identity with Brahma, the imper- 
sonal God, or by the way of devotion, devotion 
being not faith in a God who works for the soul, 
but the maintenance by the soul of a saving 
attitude of mind toward the deity chosen to be 
worshiped. This is actual Hinduism, not the 
nobler doctrine of the Vedas. In Buddhism sal- 
vation is the extinction of existence. Indeed, 
there is no soul recognized by pure Buddhism, 



340 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



History, 

Progress and 

Spiritual 

Freedom. 



There is only the Karma, or character, which 
survives, and every man must work out his own 
Karma unaided.. "By one's self," it is written 
in the Dhammapada, "the evil is done; by one's 
self one suffers; by one's self evil is left undone; 
by one's self one is purified. Lo, no man can 
purify another." The best Northern Buddhism, 
as we have seen, draws nearest to Christianity in 
its conception of a salvation by faith in Amitaba 
Buddha, but even here the salvation is release 
from the necessity of continued rebirths, not a 
creation of new character for human service in 
divine loyalty. Confucianism has no doctrine of 
salvation. The Chinese soul has had to turn, in 
the attempt to satisfy its needs, to other teachers. 
In its ideal and offer of salvation Christianity 
stands alone. (Kellogg, "Comparative Reli- 
gion," Ch. IV, V.) 

5. Christianity is the only religion which is at 
once historical, progressive and spiritually free. 
Therefore, it is the only religion which can 
claim universal dominion. Each religion of the 
world has filled a place in history, but Moham- 
medanism is the only one whose historical facts 
are essential to it, and as Bishop Westcott says, — 

Christianity is historical not simply in the sense in 
which, for example, Mohammedanism is historical, 
because the facts connected with the origin and growth 
of this religion, with the personalty and life of the 
Founder, with the experience and growth of His doc- 
trine, can be traced in documents which are adequate 
to assure belief; but in a far different sense also. It is 
historical in its antecedents, in its realization, in itself; 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 341 

it is historical as crowning a long period of religious 
training which was accomplished under the influence of 
divine facts ; it is historical as brought out in all its 
fullness from age to age in an outward society by the 
action of the Spirit of God ; but above all, and most 
characteristically, it is historical because the revelation 
which it brings is of life and in life. The history of 
Christ is the Gospel in its light and in its power. His 
teaching is Himself, and nothing apart from Himself; 
what He is and what He does. The earliest creed — the 
creed of baptism — is the affirmation of facts which 
include all doctrine. 

Dogmatic systems may change, and have changed so 
far as they reflect transitory phases of speculative 
thought, but the- primitive gospel is unchangeable as it 
is inexhaustible. There can be no addition to it. It 
contains in itself all that will be slowly wrought out in 
thought and deed until the consummation. 

In this sense, Christianity is the only historical reli- 
gion. The message which it proclaims is wholly unique. 
Christ said, I am — not I declare, or I lay open, or I 
point to, but I am — the Way, the Truth and the Life. 
(Westcott, "Religious Thought in the West," p. 346 f.) 

And Christianity is the only progressive reli- 
gion. Northern Buddhism has progressed by a 
change which has completely altered its character 
from that of Southern Buddhism, but the Japanese 
people, who have carried it farthest, no longer 
regard it as capable of adaptation to the needs of 
a progressive society. Confucianism is by its 
very principle unprogressive. It is an appeal to 
ancient precedents. Of Mohammedanism and 
Hinduism, let two competent witnesses speak. 
Of Mohammedanism, Professor Kuenen: — 

Islam was destined, after a very brief period of 
growth and development, to stereotype itself once for 



342 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

all and assume its unalterable shape. Succeeding gener- 
ations, and nations with other mental equipment, might 
add to it from their own stores, and might attempt to 
modify and expand its rigid form. Only for a time, 
and indeed only in appearance, could these attempts 
succeed. Almost as old as Islam itself and destined to 
last as long, there stood and there stand immovable the 
Koran and the Tradition. The better they were fitted 
partly to inspire and partly to subdue Mohammed's 
fellow countrymen, and so in the first period to work 
marvels, the more uncompromisingly do they bar the 
way to the realization of their own ideal — the spread of 
Islam amongst all the children of men. True univer- 
salism is" to Islam, in virtue of its very origin, unattain- 
able. (Kuenen, "Hibbert Lectures," p. 54.) 

And of Hinduism, Dr. Hume: — 

If, as we believe, Christianity is the fullest interpre- 
tation of universal religion which has yet been made, 
and if it is a growing religion in which there is room 
for all fuller knowledge that may come to mankind, 
and is one which adapts itself to various races and 
individuals according to their individual and varying 
needs, then Christianity, as now developing and to be 
developed hereafter, will become the religion of India 
and of the world. Prof. E. W. Hopkins, successor of 
Prof. W. D. Whitney of Yale, after visits to India and 
after exceptional study of the religions of India, thus 
speaks in his book on "The Religions of India": "In 
her own religions there is no hope for India, and her 
best minds have renounced them. The body of Hin- 
duism is corrupt, its soul is evil. As for Brahmanism — 
the Brahmanism that produced the Upanishads — the 
spirit is departed and the form that remains is dead." 
(Hume, "Missions from the Modern View," p. 189.) 

And so, also, in Christianity alone is there 
spiritual freedom. In Indian pantheism, Chinese 



CHRIST, THE ONL Y LIGHT 343 

polytheism, or the Buddhist predestinarianism of 
Karma, there can be no personal spiritual free- 
dom. Can there be in Islam? If it is not there, 
it is nowhere outside of Christianity. Let another 
competent witness answer. Professor Macdonald 
first quotes the Moslem theologian, Al-Ghazzali, 
who is commenting on the Koran: — 

He whom Allah wills to guide, he opens his breast to 
Islam ; and he whom he wills to lead astray, he narrows 
his breast. He is the guider aright and the leader 
astray ; he does what he wills, and decides what he 
wishes ;. there is no opposer of his decision and no 
repeller of his decree. He created the Garden and 
created for it a people, then used them in obedience ; 
and he created the Fire, and created for it a people, 
then used them in rebellion ; and he informed his 
creation of the sign of the people of the Garden and of 
the sign of the people of the Fire; then said, "The pure 
are in pleasure and the impure are in Jahim" ("blazing 
fire," i.e., hell.) Then he said, as has been handed 
down from the Prophet, "These are in the Garden, and 
I care not; and these are in the Fire, and I care not." 
So he is Allah Most High, the King, the Reality; "He 
is not asked concerning what he does ; but they are 
asked." 

And then Professor Macdonald adds : — 
This is the end of the whole matter, and to this must 
return the vision of the Moslem mystic and the ecstasy 
of the Moslem saint: the dreams of a lover and a 
beloved, and the groanings and travailings of creation. 
Whenever the devout life, with its spiritual aspirations 
and fervent longings, touches the scheme of Moslem 
theology, it must thus bend and break. For it, within 
Islam itself, there is no place. (Macdonald, "Religious 
Attitude and Life in Islam/' p. 300 f.) 






344 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Because it is founded in historic facts and 
dowered with reality, because it is expansive to 
all the need and movement of life, and because it 
is free and the fountain of that true freedom 
wherewith only the Son can make men free, 
Christianity is the only religion adapted to 
universal dominion. 
Its Ethical 6. The ethical uniqueness of Christianity 

Uniqueness. entitles it to absorb and displace all other reli- 
gions. It alone makes the moral character of 
God the central and transcendent thing. Judged 
by its God, no other gods are really good. It 
alone presents a perfect ethical ideal for the 
individual and it alone possesses a social ethic 
adequate for a true national life and for a world 
society. It is pre-eminently the ethical religion. 
All its values are moral values. All the best life 
of Christian lands is an effort to embody the 
Christian ethics in life, and those ethics shelter 
absolutely none of the evil of Christian lands. 
''There is hardly a more trustworthy sign and a 
safer criterion of the civilization of a people," 
says the anthropologist Waitz, "than the degree 
in which the demands of a pure morality are 
supported by their religion and are interwoven 
with their religious life." And this is the true 
test of religions also. Do they supply men with 
perfect moral ideals? Do they condemn evil and 
refuse to allow evil to shelter itself under reli- 
gious sanction? On one or both of these issues 



CHRIST, THE ONLT LIGHT 345 

every non-Christian religion breaks down. There 
is much worthy moral teaching in each of the 
non-Christian religions, but the Koran enjoined 
the enslavement of the women and children of 
unbelievers conquered in battle, and authorized 
unlimited concubinage, and its sanction of polyg- 
amy cannot be defended as in the interest of 
morality. "Polygamy," said Dr. Henry H. 
Jessup, "has not diminished licentiousness among 
Mohammedans." (Jessup, "The Mohammedan 
Missionary Problem," p. 46 f. ) Even in the 
Vedas there are passages which are morally de- 
barred from publication. "I dare not give and 
you dare not print," wrote the Rev. S. Williams, 
"the ipsissima verba of an English version of the 
original Yajar Veda Mantras." ("Indian Evan- 
gelical Review," January, 1891.) In the Bhag- 
avata Purana the character of the god Krishna is 
distinguished by licentiousness. And worst of 
all in the Hindu ethics, even in the Bhagavad- 
gita, it is taught that actions in themselves do 
not defile one, if only they are performed in the 
state of mind enjoined in the poem. While 
Buddhist and Confucianist ethics are deficient 
in active benevolence and human service. "Be ye 
perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect," is a 
conception peculiar to Christianity. 

And when we turn to the social aspects of j tg gocxal 
comparative ethics, we see with equal clearness Superiority, 
the uniqueness of Christianity. Jevons points 



346 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

out one element of this superiority of Christianity 
over all other religions: — 

What differentiates Christianity from other ethical 
religions, and from other forms of monotheism, is that 
in them religion appears as ancillary to morality, and 
imposes penalties and rewards with a view to enforce or 
encourage morality. In them, at their highest, the love 
of man is for his fellow man, and usually for himself. 
Christianity alone makes love of God to be the true 
basis and the only end of society, both that whereby 
personality exists and the end in which it seeks its 
realization. Therein the Christian theory of society 
differs from all others. Not merely does it hold that 
man cannot make himself better without making society 
better, that development of personality cannot be 
effected without a corresponding development of 
society. But it holds that such moral development and 
improvement of the individual and of society can find 
no rational basis, and has no rational end, save in the 
love of God. (Jevons, "Introduction to the Study of 
Comparative Religion," p. 260.) 

But the precise form of Christianity's social 
superiority to other religions is less significant 
than the great fact that the ethics of religions 
like Brahmanism and Buddhism are not social at 
all. "At the best, " says Hobhouse, "the Brah- 
manic view of life is pessimistic and its highest 
ideal is the sage who, having performed his 
duties, has emancipated himself from human 
relations and entered into the spiritual kingdom 
of the god within his breast. It contains no 
message of comfort for the sufferer, of love, of 
forgiveness, of humility. Still less does it pro- 
claim an ideal of social justice. It leaves us with 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 347 

the picture of the emaciated hermit dreaming, in 
the trance of semi-starvation, of himself as one 
with the center of things, — a God self-created by 
his own afflicted brain." (Hobhouse, ' 'Morals 
in Evolution," Vol. II, p. 105.) And of Bud- 
dhism Menzies says: — 

This religion is not a social force, it aims not at a 
kingdom of God to be built up by the united efforts of 
multitudes of the faithful, but only at saving individual 
souls, which in the act of being saved are removed 
beyond all activity and all contact with the world. 
Buddhism, therefore, is not a power which makes 
actively for civilization. It is a powerful agent for the 
taming of passion and the prevention of vagrant and 
lawless desires ; it tends, therefore, towards peace. But 
it offers no stimulus to the realization of the riches 
which are given to man in his own nature ; it checks 
rather than fosters enterprise; it favors a full con- 
formity to rule rather than the free cultivation of 
various gifts. Its ideal is to empty life of everything 
active and positive, rather than to concentrate energy 
on a strong purpose. It does not train the affections to 
virtuous and harmonious action, but denies to them all 
action and consigns them to extinction. (Menzies, 
"History of Religion," p. 379.) 

The more rigorous our comparison of Chris- 
tianity in its moral ideals and its moral power 
with other religions, even with the most generous 
possible interpretation of the non-Christian faiths, 
the more clearly does their need appear, and with 
it the sole sufficiency of Christ to meet it. 

Dr. Barrows, in his closing lecture in India, 
said: — 

The world needs the Christian religion. India needs 
Christ. I speak with some confidence on this point. 



348 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

In the providence of God, I have given time during the 
best years of my life to the examination of this ques- 
tion, and I have had opportunities such as few other 
men ever had of seeing and knowing the best side of the 
ethnic religions. I count as my friends Parsees and 
Hindus, Buddhists and Confucianists, Shintoists, Jains 
and Mohammedans. I know what they say about them- 
selves. I have looked at their religions on the ideal 
side as well as the practical, and I know this, that the 
very best which is in them, the very best which these 
well-meaning men have shown to us, is often a reflex 
from Christianity, and that what they lack, and the lack 
is very serious, is what the Christian gospel alone can 
impart; and I know that beneath the shining examples 
of the elect few in the non-Christian world there is a 
vast area of idolatry, and pollution, and unrest, and 
superstition, and cruelty, which can never be healed 
by the forces which are found in the non-Christian 
systems. Recognizing to the full the brighter side of 
so-called heathenism, rejoicing that the light has been 
shining everywhere, and that foreshadowings of the 
evangelic truths are discoverable among the nations, I 
yet see that in Christ only is there full salvation for the 
individual and for society. (Barrows, "Christianity 
the World Religion," p. 158.) 

7. The social uniqueness of Christianity sets 
it in a class apart from the other religions. Its 
ethics, as just pointed out, are socially superior. 
The superiority of Christianity in this regard 
needs separate emphasis. It is the one religion 
of brotherhood, asserting the unity of humanity. 
Hinduism denies human unity by its caste, Con- 
fucianism by its pride, Mohammedanism by its 
bigotry. Kuenen disputes the common idea that 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 349 

Buddhism repudiated caste and taught equality, 
and he quotes the opinion of Oldenberg: — 

We can understand how in our times Buddha should 
have had the role assigned to him of a social reformer 
who broke the oppressive chains of caste and won a 
place for the poor and humble in the spiritual kingdom 
which he founded. But if anyone would really sketch 
the work of Buddha, he must, for truth's sake, dis- 
tinctly deny that the glory of any such deed, under 
whatever form it may be conceived, really belongs to 
him. (Kuenen, "Hibbert Lectures," 1882, p. 246 f.) 

And Christianity is the one religion which has Tne Place of 
taught the equality of woman with man, produced tte Child in 
the unique institution of the Christian home, and "stiamty. 
set the child as a matter of social and religious 
principle in the first place. We cannot overstate 
the significance of the religious test afforded in a 
comparative study of the place of the child in the 
world religions. Christianity is the only religion 
that makes anything of the childhood of its 
Founder. The other religions of the world 
either have nothing to say about the childhood of 
their founders, or preserve only a few insignifi- 
cant traditions. And Christianity is the only 
religion that takes any particular account of the 
children themselves. The gospels are full of 
stories of Jesus' miracles in behalf of children, 
and of his love and tenderness toward children. 
The other religions are concerned with adults. 
Their message is a message for adults. Chris- 
tianity is the only religion which prescribes the 
spirit of childhood as important. Christianity, 



350 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

indeed, makes it essential. No one can enter the 
kingdom of heaven who will not do so as a little 
child. Tradition says that Lao-tsze, the founder 
of Taoism, was born as an old man, and all the 
other religions demand as conditions of salvation 
what is inconsistent with, or far beyond the spirit 
of, childhood. 

These are radical distinctions. How radical 
they are is seen in the consequences of the atti- 
tude of the different religions toward child char- 
acter and child life. From the beginning 
Christianity has had a tender solicitude for the 
child. Schools and orphanages and homes were 
its immediate products, and all over the world 
to-day the first anxiety of the Christian Church is 
for the child. By loving rites the child is recog- 
nized in its infancy as having a place in the 
Christian institution, and its nurture and care 
are the chief concern of the church. "To child- 
ren," as Uhlhorn says in "The Conflict of Chris- 
tianity with Heathenism," "the gospel first gave 
their rights. They, too, in antiquity were beyond 
the pale of the laws. A father could dispose of 
his children at will. If he did not wish to rear 
them, he could abandon or kill them. The law 
of the Twelve Tables expressly awarded to him 
this right. Plato and Aristotle approved of 
parents' abandoning weak and sickly children 
whom they were unable to support, or who could 
not be of use to the state. Whoever picked up 
a child who had been deserted could dispose of 
it and treat it as a slave. The father's power 



CHRIST, THE ONL Y LIGHT 351 

over his children was limitless; life and death 
were at his disposal. Christianity, on the con- 
trary, taught parents that their children were a 
gift from God, a pledge entrusted to them, for 
which they were responsible to Him. It spoke 
not merely of the duties of children, but also of 
the duties of parents; and since it invested these, 
as representatives of God, with something of His 
majesty and honor, it appointed to them the lofty 
task of educating their baptized offspring as chil- 
dren of God, and for His kingdom. The exposi- 
tion of children was looked upon by Christians 
as plainly unlawful, — it was regarded and treated 
as murder. And, though paternal authority was 
highly esteemed, there could no longer be any 
claim to an unconditional right over children 
after men had learned to look upon them as God's 
property. 

The one fact of polygamy alone is enough to 
indicate how widely different the place of chil- 
dren in the non-Christian religions must be from 
their place in Christianity. Polygamy makes a 
pure and loving home life impossible, and it 
begets an atmosphere in which right education 
in character is an impossibility. And all the 
non-Christian religions are polygamous, or, by 
the practice of concubinage, practically polyg- 
amous. 

Under all the non-Christian religions the girls Heathenism's 
suffer. The preservation of the male line is the Contempt for 
great essential, and often polygamy and concu- Girls. 



352 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

binage are practiced simply to secure male off- 
spring, the woman and the girl being of little 
account save as they belong to the process. 
"One of the deepest convictions in the mind of 
the Arab," says Dr. Jessup, "is that any man is 
immeasurably superior to any woman, — that 
women are fit only to be despised. The rejoic- 
ing over the birth of a son is matched by the 
grief with which a daughter is received into the 
world. In Kesrawan, a district of Mount Lebanon 
near Beyrout, the Arab women have a proverb, 
'The threshold weeps forty days when a girl is 
born.' " In China daughters are not counted. If 
a man is asked how many children he has, he 
will reply with the number of his sons. A 
pagan Chinese woman, speaking upon the subject 
of daughters, remarked, "A daughter is a trouble- 
some and expensive thing anyway. Not only 
has she to be fed but there is all the trouble of 
binding her feet, and of getting her betrothed, 
and of making up her wedding garments, and 
even after she is married off she must have pres- 
ents made to her when she has children. Really, 
it is no wonder that so many baby girls have been 
slain at their birth." "A boy," declares a 
common Chinese saying, "is worth ten times 
as much as a girl." "If a girl does no harm," 
declares another, "it is enough; you cannot 
expect her to be either useful or good." The 
Chinese contempt for girls rests upon a religious 
basis. The great religious conception in China 



CHRIST, THE ONL T LIGHT 353 

is the idea of ancestral worship. The happiness 
of the soul in the world beyond depends upon 
the maintenance of reverence and care for the 
spirits by living male descendants. Daughters 
are useless to the spirits of the dead. In India 
"the position of women is shown to be inferior 
to that of men from the hour of their birth. As 
soon as a boy is born a horn made of a shell is 
blown, to tell the neighbors the good news, but 
when a daughter is born there is no sound of 
rejoicing. When a son is born, friends come to 
congratulate the father, but when he has a little 
girl, if friends come at all, it is to show their 
sympathy with the family. For a son religious 
ceremonies are performed. Mothers with sons 
are regarded as the favorites of the gods, but 
mothers with daughters only are thought to be 
accursed. And the Hindu religion permits a 
man to marry a second wife, if within seven 
years of marriage he has no son, although he 
may have daughters." 

It is this contempt for girls that has led to Infanticide, 
infanticide. "Of the prevalence of infanticide 
in China," says Dr. W. A. P. Martin, "there is 
unhappily no room for doubt. The question is 
set at rest by the testimony of the people them- 
selves. Among their moral tracts dissuading 
from vice and crime a conspicuous place is filled 
by a class called 'Dissuasives from Drowning 
Daughters.' Official proclamations may often 
be seen posted on gates and walls forbidding the 



354 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

practice." Dr. Abeel gave it as his verdict, 
after repeated investigation in the vicinity of 
Amoy, that the ''number destroyed varies exceed- 
ingly in different places, the extremes extending 
from seventy and eighty per cent to ten per cent, 
and the average proportion destroyed in all these 
places amounting to nearly four-tenths, or exactly 
thirty-nine per cent. In seventeen of forty towns 
and villages [visited] my informants declare that 
one-half or more are deprived of existence at 
birth." Of India it is declared by sober author- 
ities that the murder of female children, whether 
by the direct employment of homicidal means or 
by the more inhuman and not less certain meas- 
ures of exposure to privation and neglect, has for 
ages been the chief and most characteristic crime 
of six-sevenths of the inhabitants of British India. 
In spite of the prohibition of infanticide by the 
British Government, there have been officially 
reported in fifteen years 12,542 cases of infanti- 
cide, and "this number," Dr. Dennis says, 
''represents only a small proportion of the total." 
In Africa the birth of twin children among 
almost all the races is regarded with superstitious 
horror. ''The birth of twins," says Mrs. Hill 
of Western Equatorial Africa, "is considered a 
great curse, and the woman that has twins is dis- 
graced for life afterwards, and she is compelled 
to throw the twins into the wood, where they are 
left to die. In a town five miles distant from 
where we were there are five hundred infants 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 355 

annually sacrificed; they are murdered by hun- 
dreds, and left to die in the way which I have 
stated." 

And even when children are loved and cared 
for they are exposed under the non-Christian 
faiths to far greater perils of disease and want 
than under Christianity. Christianity produces 
plenty. It leads to cleanliness and -earnest 
thought about others, so that children receive 
under Christianity a care entirely unknown under 
the non-Christian religions. Thus a woman 
missionary from Korea writes: "Kim Si has a 
son, rather a 'ne'er do weel' I'm afraid, as the 
sons of rich and indulgent mothers may easily 
become in other places than Korea. But he has 
a girl wife of seventeen, and now they have a 
fine baby boy four months old. She is a dear 
little mother, and idolizes her baby, but, like 
all Korean mothers, she does fearful and wonder- 
ful things to him. But she and Kim Si have 
both been among the missionaries enough to 
realize that there are things to do for babies that 
they never have dreamed of, wonderful garments 
of which they know neither the form nor the 
name, and ways by which the baby can have a 
bath even in winter and not meet its death. She 
came into my room one evening, and as I sat on 
my cot she crouched at my feet, and with her 
hands clasped in my lap, her soft eyes looking 
into mine with the most wistful longing, she 
asked me question after question as to how she 



356 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

might best care for her baby, and train him to be 
a useful man. Poor little woman! Her heart 
was full of eager desire to do the very best for 
her little one. She knew that there were things 
that might be done to make him well and happy 
and good, but as to what and how she knew 
nothing at all. You mothers at home who sur- 
round .your babies with every good thing that 
love and intelligent care can provide, don't forget 
to offer a prayer sometimes for these mothers in 
Korea who only know that they have been lead- 
ing their children in the darkness, and are now 
eagerly trying to follow each ray of light. After 
a talk on the care of children given by one of our 
ladies here in a city class one evening, a sweet, 
sad-faced woman came to me, and said, 'I have 
lost three babies all because I did not know these 
things I have heard to-night, but when my new 
little one comes I believe I can keep it.' And I 
have no doubt it was literally true." 
Child The curse of child marriage in India is 

Marriage. enjoined by the Hindu religion. The census of 
1891 in India gives the following returns of early 
marriage: — 

Under 4 years of age, males . . 6.945 

" " " females . 258,760 

From 5 to 9 years, males . . 690,803 

" " " females . . 2,201,404 

" 10 to 14 years, males . . 2,342,433 

" " " females . . 6,016,759 

Mr. Justice Moothsowami Tver recently said, 
' 'According to custom now obtaining, a Brahman 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 357 

girl is bound to marry, for fear of social degrada- 
tion, before she attains maturity. Marriage is of 
the nature of a sacrament which no Brahman is 
at liberty to neglect without forfeiting his caste." 
He shows that the Smritis, or Things heard from 
God, "declare it to be a duty of a father to 
bestow his daughter in marriage before she attains 
her maturity." "A father should try his*best to 
perform the marriage of his daughter from the 
fourth year of her age upward, till before the 
completion of the tenth year." 

And it will not do for the apologists for Hin- 
duism to say that child marriages are only 
betrothals and not real marriages. Often they 
are only betrothals, but in innumerable cases 
little girls are actually married, with the inevita- 
ble consequence of untold suffering and pain. 
Facts could be cited from medical testimony. 
And the curse of child marriage has associated 
with it the curse of child widowhood. In 1891 
there were 14,000 widows under five years of 
age. Nearly every fifth woman in India is a 
widow, held in contempt as unclean and an 
object of suspicion as hated by the gods. 

In Buddhist lands, such as Japan and Siam, 
the child's lot is happier than under the other 
non-Christian religions. A boy is more wel- 
come than a girl, but the girl is welcomed and 
counted as she may not be in India and China. 
But however just and kind her treatment here, 
no girl or woman, as such, can be saved or attain 



358 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 



The Unique 
Book of 
Christianity. 



Nirvana at last. She must be born in the wheel 
of transmigration as a man. The lot of the child 
is not unhappy, however, in these lands, but it 
is bound by the common superstitions, and from 
the earliest years goes to worship the idols and to 
propitiate the spirits. 

But whether the child is welcomed and cared 
for by parental love or not — and wherever in the 
world there are mother hearts there will surely be 
mother's love — the fact remains that none of the 
religions of the world, except Christianity, takes 
any special account of the child, or have any 
word for him or about him. Only Christ took a 
little child and set him in the midst. Only Christ 
was a little child, and this has made all the 
difference in the world to children. 

Aye, sure the babe is in his cradle blest 
Since God himself a baby deigned to be, 

And slept upon a mortal mother's breast, 
And bathed in baby tears his deity. 

8. The Bible is unique among the sacred books 
of the world. The fourth of Dr. Barrows' Haskell 
Lectures in India was on "The Universal Book." 
In a farewell address in New York he summarized 
his whole line of argument, and two glowing 
paragraphs will suffice to indicate both his own 
enthusiastic faith and the ground for it: — 

How narrow and poor, in comparison, has been the 
ministry of other sacred books! How limited to 
national areas ! Much of the best modern poetry, 
where the beauty depends so much on the artistic 
expression, cannot be successfully put into most other 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 359 

tongues, but the poetry of the Psalter, for example, is 
primarily in the thought, and thought can go every- 
where. Expert scholars inform us that the bibles of 
other peoples, when translated into the English, are as 
variant from the original form and melody as can well 
be imagined. The Mohammedan deems it a sacrilege 
for the Koran to talk in infidel tongues ; the very words 
which the Prophet dictated and which his scribes wrote 
down on palm leaves and shoulder blades, must be 
learned in the Arabic and repeated in the original. We 
are convinced that there is no life-giving power in such 
mummeries. An intelligent world is not to be put to 
confusion by superstitions. But the Bible, entering as 
life and truth, justifies its claims by what it has wrought 
for the savage and civilized races of men. It has lifted 
the mind and transformed the life, enlarged the horizon, 
and given to human darkness the bright atmosphere of 
celestial worlds. To the ancient Greek, the knowledge 
of the Old Testament and the New brought fresh con- 
stellations to his sensitive and ever-expanding intelli- 
gence ; and, surveying the effects which the Bible has 
wrought on some modern peoples like Japan, ambitious 
to get out of the primitive stages of civilization, one 
writer, using a thoroughly modern metaphor, tells us 
that "the translation of the Bible is like building a rail- 
road through the national intellect." 

A book which contains the Gospel of John, which 
Schaff called "the most important literary production 
ever written by man," and whose third chapter is better 
fitted to improve the morals and lift the hopes of man- 
kind than many a hundredweight of Brahmanic and 
Buddhistic literature ; a book which has given to man- 
kind all the pure and strong and vigorous monotheism 
now prevailing in our race, among nations as diverse as 
those who dwell in Scotland and those who dwell in 
Arabia ; a book whose prolonged history was a manifest 
prophecy of the Messiah, culminating in the matchless 



360 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

person and teachings of Jesus Christ, and through 
whose record there runs, by the side of human sin, the 
current of a divine redemption ; a book which opens 
with creation's story, written long before the birth of 
science and conformed to that theory of development 
from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the 
higher, which science now wears as its most lustrous 
crown; a book which deals with those stories of the 
earth's origin and of the earth's destruction by a deluge 
in such a way as to demonstrate its moral superiority 
above the other traditions and accounts which have 
been left us; a book which has furnished in its psalms, 
written more than twenty-five hundred years ago, the 
one devotional volume most acceptable to the enlight- 
ened nations of to-day, — those psalms on which John 
Bright declared he would be content to stake the ques- 
tion whether there is or there is not a Divine revela- 
tion ; a book which has furnished mankind the authority 
for that Sabbath of rest, without which civilization 
would rapidly sink into physical decay and moral bar- 
barism ; a book which, through its claiming insistence 
on righteousness, its doctrine of retribution, and its 
disclosure of the Christ, opposes the degrading and 
downward tendencies of sin, and is lifting great portions 
of our race into a better manhood, and which carries on 
the forefront of its gospel the priceless truth of immor- 
tality, making our earth in spite of its sorrows and 
transgressions the suburb and gateway of celestial life, 
shines so pre-eminently that it is only with an extreme 
of courtesy that we can bring it in comparison with 
other sacred writings. ("Homiletic Review," May, 
1896, p. 399.) 
Tne Only 9. Christianity is worthy to become the one 

Religion Tkat re ligion of the world, because it is the only reli- 
gion that can be made the world's religion; the 
only religion which belongs to every race, but 



. Life, 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 361 

exclusively to none, — which has no narrowing 
ethnic limitations, which is adaptive to all the 
life of humanity and capable of inspiring and 
guiding all the progress of mankind. In a true 
sense, as Richard Rothe said, i( Christianity is 
the most mutable of all things. This is its 
glory." It quickens men to ceaseless effort and 
growth, and as they change and expand and 
advance Christianity seems to alter with them. 
What it is doing is simply to give men a larger 
experience of its own transforming power. 

In every land where Christianity prevails, an influence 
connected with religion is at work, which makes for 
the emancipation and elevation of the human person, 
and for the awakening of the manifold energies of 
human nature. This, as we saw, is the immediate and 
native tendency of the religion of Jesus ; it opens the 
prison doors to them that are bound ; it communicates 
by its inner encouragement an energy which makes the 
infirm forget their weaknesses ; it fills the heart with 
hope and opens up new views of what man can do and 
can become. It is this that makes it the one truly 
universal religion. Islam, it is true, has also proved its 
power to live in many lands, and Buddhism has spread 
over half of Asia. But Buddhism is not a full religion, — 
it does not tend to action but to passivity, and affords 
no help to progress. Islam, on the other hand, is a 
yoke rather than an inspiration ; it is inwardly hostile 
to freedom, and is incapable of aiding in higher moral 
development. Christianity has a message to which men 
become always more willing to respond as they rise in 
the scale of civilization ; it has proved its power to 
enter into the lives of various nations, and to adapt 
itself to their circumstances and guide their aspirations 
without humiliating them. A religion which identifies 



362 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

itself, as Christianity does, with the cause of freedom 
in every land, and tends to unite all men in one great 
brotherhood under the loving God who is the Father 
of all alike, is surely the desire of all nations, and is 
destined to be the faith of all mankind. (Menzies, "The 
History of Religion," p. 423.) 

And Christianity alone possesses this trans- 
forming and adaptive power because it alone is 
life. We have been comparing it as Christianity 
and as a religion with the non-Christian religions, 
but as a matter of fact these terms conceal the 
very issue. We cannot compare things that are 
incommensurable, and the life in Christ is not a 
system. The term Christianity does not occur in 
the New Testament. Jesus never uses the word 
religion. It occurs in the New Testament only 
half a dozen times. Christianity is a term which 
stands in the same class with Judaism, Buddhism, 
Hinduism, but Jesus did not mean to add a new 
and rival religious system. He did not say, "I 
am come that they might have Christianity." 
John did not say, "He that hath Christianity hath 
life." Paul did not say, "Believe in Christianity 
and thou shalt be saved." The living Christ and 
life in Christ filled the thought of the disciples, 
and the great word of Christ Himself was life. 
This is the fundamental, radical and utterly 
divisive distinction. "Christianity is more and 
higher than Heathenism," says Uchimura in his 
"Diary." "It is Heathenism plus Life. By it 
alone the law-keeping becomes a possibility. It 
is the Spirit of the Law. It of all religions 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 363 

works from inside. It is what Heathenism has 
been searching and groping after with much 
weeping. It not only shows us the good, but it 
makes us good, by taking us right at once to the 
Eternal Goodness Himself. It provides us not 
only with the Way, but with the Life as well; 
with the Rail as well as with the Engine. I am 
yet to be taught by ' Comparative Religion' of 
some other religion that does likewise. " ("Diary 
of a Japanese Convert," p. 179.) 

10. Christianity is the final and absolute reli- Christianity 
gion, because it contains all the good and truth the one Ful- 
that can be found in any other religion, and tillment and 
presents it to men in its divine fullness, while ° mp . 

*- rlumanity. 

other religions have none but partial good; be- 
cause it is free from the evils which are found in 
all other religions, and because it alone can satisfy 
all the needs of the human heart and of the human 
race. We are glad to find any outreach after 
truth in other religions which shows that the 
hearts of those who hold it are made for that truth 
and capable of receiving it in its perfect form in 
Christianity. "The glory of Christianity," said 
Professor Jowett, "is not to be as unlike other 
religions as possible, but to be their perfection 
and fulfillment." That is true of their good, but 
Christianity does glory in its freedom from all 
their falsehood and error. Christianity is final, 
because there is no good beyond it and no evil in 
it, and because it cleanses and crowns all the life 
and thought of man. It is the end of all men's 



364 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

quest. "I maintain," says Tiele, "that the 
appearance of Christianity inaugurated an en- 
tirely new epoch in the development of religion; 
that all the streams of the religious life of man, 
once separate, unite in it; and that religious 
development will henceforth consist in an ever 
higher realization of the principles of that reli- 
gion." (Tiele, "Elements of the Science of 
Religion," First Series, p. 212.) And Chris- 
tianity is absolute as well as final; that is, it fills 
the field. There can be nothing higher or better. 
There can be nothing else in the same class. 

Bishop Westcott said: — 

A perfect religion— a religion which offers a complete 
satisfaction to the religious wants of man — must (to 
repeat briefly what has been said) be able to meet the 
religious wants of the individual, the society, the race, 
in the complete course of their development and in the 
manifold intensity of each separate human faculty. 

This being so, I contend that the faith in Christ, 
born, crucified, risen, ascended, forms the basis of this 
perfect religion ; that it is able, in virtue of its essential 
character, to bring peace in view of the problems of 
life under every variety of circumstance and character — 
to illuminate, to develop, and to inspire every human 
faculty. My contention rests upon the recognition of 
the two marks by which Christianity is distinguished 
from every other religion. It is absolute and it is 
historical. 

On the one side, Christianity is not confined by any 
limits of place, or time, or faculty, or object. It 
reaches to the whole sum of being and to the whole of 
each separate existence. On the other side, it offers its 
revelation in facts which are an actual part of human 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT 365 

experience, so that the peculiar teaching which it brings 
as to the nature and relations of God and man and the 
world is simply the interpretation of events in the life 
of men and in the life of One who was truly Man. It 
is not a theory, a splendid guess, but a proclamation of 
facts. 

These, I repeat, are its original, its unalterable 
claims. Christianity is absolute. It claims, as it was 
set forth by the Apostles, though the grandeur of the 
claim was soon obscured, to reach all men, all time, all 
creation ; it claims to effect the perfection no less than 
the redemption of finite being; it claims to bring a per- 
fect unity of humanity without destroying the person- 
ality of any one man ; it claims to deal with all that is 
external as well as with all that is internal, with matter 
as well as with spirit, with the physical universe as well 
as with the moral universe; it claims to realize a 
re-creation co-extensive with creation ; it claims to 
present Him who was the Maker of the world, as the 
Heir of all things ; it claims to complete the cycle of 
existence, and show how all things come from God and 
go to God. (Westcott, "Religious Thought in the 
West," p. 345 f.) 

As absolute, it must displace all that is partial The Faith 
or false. It must conquer the world. The that ia to 
people who have it must be a missionary people. ^<»quertiie 

mi i i i -i t ■ i World. 

lhis is the solemn duty with which we are 
charged by our personal experience of the treasure 
that is in Christ, and this is the solemn duty with 
which any true comparison of Christianity with 
the world religions confronts us. Alike from the 
look within and from the look without we arise 
with a clear understanding of the missionary 
character of the religion that bears the name of 



366 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Christ. The attitude of that religion is "not one 
of compromise, but one of conflict and of con- 
quest. It proposes to displace the other religions. 
The claim of Jeremiah is the claim of Chris- 
tianity, — 'The gods that have not made the 
heavens and the earth, they shall perish from the 
earth and from under the heavens. ' The sur- 
vival of the Creator, joyfully foreseen, is the 
ground of its confidence and its endeavor. 
Christianity thus undertakes a long and laborious 
campaign, in which it must experience various 
fortunes and learn patience from trials and delays; 
but the true state of the case must not be for- 
gotten, namely, that Christianity sets out for 
victory. The intention to conquer is character- 
istic of the gospel. This was the aim of its 
youth when it went forth among the religions 
that then surrounded it, and with this aim it must 
enter any field in which old religions are encum- 
bering the religious nature of man. It cannot 
conquer except in love, but in love it intends to 
conquer. It means to fill the world." It must 
do so in order that the Nations may have their 
Desire and the World its Light. 

BIBLE READING 

Third Chapter of Ephesian>. 

QUESTIONS 

Is it desirable or necessary to compare Christianity 
with other religions? 



CHRIST, THE ONLY LIGHT S67 

On what terms is the comparison to be made? Are 
these terms easy or possible? 

Are resemblances or differences to be chiefly empha- 
sized in the comparison of religions? 

What different views are taken of the relation of 
Christianity to other religions? 

Are the non-Christian religions efforts of God to 
reach men or efforts of men to reach God? Is the evil 
in these religions from God? 

On what grounds can Christianity be declared to be 
the final and absolute religion? 

Describe the superiority of the Christian conception 
of God. 

Compare the Christian and non-Christian ideas of 
sin and salvation. 

Describe the peculiar place of the historical element 
in Christianity and also its unique spirit of life and 
progress. 

State the elements of Christianity's ethical superiority. 

Compare the influence of the various religions upon 
child life. 

What are the grounds for claiming a unique place for 
the Bible? 

What is the fundamental difference between Chris- 
tianity and all other religions? 

SELECTED REFERENCE BOOKS 

Jevons, "Introduction to the Study of Comparative 

Religion," Macmillan, 1908. 
Kellogg, "A Handbook of Comparative Religion," 

Westminster Press, 1899. 
Ellinwood, "Oriental Religions and Christianity," 

Scribner, 1892. 
Grant, "The Religions of the World," Revell, 1898. 
Menzies, "History of Religion," Scribner, 1895. 
Kuenen, "Hibbert Lectures," Scribner, 1882. 



368 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 

Tiele, "Elements of the Science of Religion," Scribner, 

1897-1899. 
Muller, "The Science of Religion," Scribner, 1887. 
Muller, "Hibbert Lectures," Longmans, Green & Co., 

1878. 
Barrows, "The Christian Conquest of Asia," Scribner, 

1899. 
Barrows, "Christianity, the World Religion," A. C. 

McClurg & Co., 1897. 
Warneck, "Modern Missions and Culture," W. B. 

Mershon, 1888. 
Hall, "The Universal Elements of the Christian Reli- 
gion," Re veil, 1905. 
Tenney, "Contrasts in Social Progress," Longmans, 

Green & Co., 1907. 
Knox, "The Direct and Fundamental Proofs of the 

Christian Religion," Scribner, 1903. 
Dennis, "Christian Missions and Social Progress," 

Revell, 1897. 



INDEX 



Abbas Effendi, 215. 

Abeel, 345. 

Abhedananda, 306, 308. 

Abu Bakr, 185 f, 192, 211. 

Abul Kasim, 213. 

Akbah, 212. 

Al Berkevi, 204, 206. 

Al-Ghazali, 182, 343. 

Ali, 212. 

Alma, 189. 

Ameer Ali, Sjed, 192, 197, 
223 

Amid'a, 115, 261. 

Andrews, C. F., viii. 

Animism, 123; the primitive 
religion of China, 126 ff; 
the religion of primitive 
races, 128 ; a religion of 
fear, 129 f ; and of spirit- 
ual poverty, 131 f. 

Arnold, Sir Edwin, 63 f, 78. 

Arya Samaj, 35 ff, 333. 

Ashvagosha, 100. 

Asoka, 74. 

Ayesha, 187. 

Bab, 214. 

Baroda, Gaekwar of,43f,45f. 

Barrows, J. H., 320, 347, 
358 ff. 

Barton, J. L., 228. 

Beha, 214 ff. 

Besant, Mrs. Annie, 18 f, 21. 

Bhagavad-gita 8, 11 f, 14, 51. 

Bloomfield, Bishop, 311. 

Brahmic Covenant, 30 f. 

Brahmo Sabha, 29. 

Brahmo Samaj, 30 ff. 

Brenton, 128. 

Browne, "A Year Among 
the Persians," 182. 

Buddhism, resemblance to 
Christianity, 63 ; wide ac- 
ceptance, 63, f ; is it a re- 
ligion? 65 ff; origin of, 
67 f; relation to Hindu- 
ism, 68 f ; founder, 69 ff ; 
spread of, 73 ff; sacred 
books, 75 f; doctrine of, 
77 f ; atheism of, 79 f; no 
soul in, 80 f; ethics of, 
86 f; caste in, 87 f; ten 
commandments, 88 f ; sins 



and duties, 89 f ; its ethics 
unsocial, 93 f; weak- 
nesses, 94 f ; development 
and division, 96 ff; in 
China, 101 f ; in Japan, 103 
ff; contrasts with Chris- 
tianity, 109 f; contacts 
with Christianity, 114 f. 
Buddhist Catechism, 79 f, 
81 f, 84 f, 110. 

Caldwell, Bishop, on the 
character of Indian peo- 
ple, 5; on the Bhagavad- 
gita, 13 ; on popular 
Hinduism, 41 f. 

Cameron, 129. 

Caste, 43 ff, 87 f. 

Castelar, 325. 

Chaitanya, 26. 

Chamberlain, Jacob, 7. 

Chang Chih Tung, 172. 

China Missions Emergency 
Committee, 169. 

Chinese people, primitive 
religion of, 126, 134; re- 
ligiousness of, 124 f. 

Chinese sects, 162. 

Chao, 162 f. 

Christianity, influence on 
Hinduism, 38 ff ; contrasts 
with Hinduism, 52 ff; 
contacts with Hinduism, 
54 ff; contrasts with Bud- 
dhism, 109 f ; contacts 
with Buddhism, 113 f; a 
message of joy to Ani- 
mistic people, 133; con- 
trasts with Confucianism, 
166-169 ; contacts with 
Confucianism, 171- 
174; contrasts with Mo- 
hammedanism, 2 2 9-2 33; 
contacts with Mohamme- 
danism, 233-237 ; compar- 
ison with other religions, 
299-313; differences fun- 
damental, 313 ff ; the final 
and absolute religion, 
332-366. 

Clark, H. Martyn, 274 f. 

Clarke, William Newton, 
335, 366. 



370 



INDEX 



Comparative religion, ne- 
cessity of study of, 299. 

Confucianism, 102 ; agnosti- 
cism of, 123; founder, 135 
ff; the Classics, 145 ff, 
150 ff; state worship, 147; 
filial piety, 148; its char- 
acter essentially political, 
148 f; defects of, 163 ff ; 
contrasts with Christian- 
ity, 166-170; inferiority to 
Christianity, 169; contacts 
with Christianity, 171-174. 

Confucius, life of, 135 ff ; 
character, 139 f; his be- 
lief in heaven, 143 f; in- 
fluence, 141 f. 

Copleston, 112. 

Cornabv, 166. 

Curzon, Lord, 318. 

Dahlke, Paul, 93 f. 

"Daily Hindu," 21. 

Dante, 180. 

Datta, Dr., 19. 

Debenrenath Tagore, 30. 

DeGroot, 126 ff. 

Dennis, J. S., 354. 

Dhammapada, 340. 

Dilger, 57. 

Douglas, 159, 167. 

Ebina, 247, 252, 256, 262, 
267, 277, 285, 289, 293. 

Edinburgh Conference, Re- 
port of Commission IV, 
41, 55 ff, 116 f, 235 f, 330 1. 

Eitel, on Buddhism, 74 f, 
77, 85 f, 112 f, 114. 

Ellinwood, F. F., 311. 

"Epiphany," 49, 321. 

Faber, Ernst, 124, 143, 145, 
149, 164 f, 171. 

Fairbairn, 124, 323. 

Farquhar, 13, 57. 

Farzi, 207. 

Flint, 47, 303 f. 

Foster, Arnold, 166. 

Fox, Francis William, 169. 

Fresnel, 219. 

Gautama, 68, 69 ff; renun- 
ciation, 70 ; enlighten- 
ment, 72; doctrine, 77 ff; 
ethics of, 87, 92 f. 



Genebrard, 180. 

Gibson, 161. 

Goreh, Nehemiah, 9. 

"Great Japan Buddhists' 

Union," 319. 
Griswold, 9. 
Gungram, 52. 
Guru Prasad Sen, 43. 

Hail, J. E., 95. 

Haji, 210. 

Haldar, Sukumar, 6, 20. 

Hall, Charles Cuthbert, 40. 

Hanifs, 201. 

Hill, Mrs., 354. 

Hinayana, 96, 99. 

Hinduism, character of its 
gods, 50 f; character of 
priesthood, 22; complex- 
ity, 3; contact with 
Christianity, 54 ff; con- 
trast with Christianity, 52 
ff; deficiencies of, 43-54; 
good in, 6 f ; insufficiency 
of, 41 f; philosophic, 15 
ff; popular, 19 ff, 23; 
present day character, 15; 
reformed, 25-41; reform 
of, due to Christianity, 38 
f, sacred books, 7 ff. 

••Hindu, The," 22. 

Hobhouse, 346. 

Honda, Bishop, 246, 248, 
257, 259, 267, 284, 290. 

Hopkins, Professor, 9, 54. 

Houghton, Lord, 221, 231. 

Hume, R. E., 342. 

Ibuka, K., 116, 246, 248, 
251, 257, 263, 266, 279, 

285, 287. 

Ijma, 199. 

Imad ud Din, 274. 

Imam, 213 f. 

Imbrie, William, 116. 

Indian people, noble quali- 
ties of, 4. 

"Indian Social Reformer," 
320. 

Inglis, James W., 162. 

Isma'il Hakki Effendi, 199. 

Iwahashi, 113. 

Jainism, 69. 



INDEX 



371 



Jaisohn, 247 f, 255, 258, 

265, 267, 281, 286. 
Jessup, H. H., 345, 352. 
Jevons, 313 f, 335, 345 f. 
Johnson, Archdeacon, 129. 
Jowett, 363. 

Kabir, 25 f. 

Kalima, 208. 

Karma, 83 f. 

Kajastha Samachar, 15. 

Keene, 225. 

Kellogg, S. H., 321. 

Ke Loo, 123. 

Keshub Chunder Sen, 32 ff. 

Khalid, 237. 

Kheiralla, 215. 

Kidd, Benjamin, 39. 

Kil, 247 f, 253, 255, 258, 

265, 268, 280, 286, 290. 
Kingslev, Charles, 181. 
Koran, 195ff, 222, 226f, 233. 
Kozaki, 246 f, 249, 256, 259, 

267, 277, 285, 293. 
Krishna, 6, 11 f, 51 f, 345. 
Kuenen, 183, 341 f, 348. 
Kume, Professor, 106. 

Ladd, George T., 334. 
Lao-tsze, 157-162, 350. 
Lefroy, Bishop, 193. 
Legge, 135, 145, 159. 
Lloyd, A., 116. 
Lucas, Bernard, 59. 

Macalister, Professor Alex- 
ander, 169. 

Macdonald, 343. 

Macnicol, 56. 

Madhava Rao, 38. 

Mahayana, 96, 99 f. 

Malcolm, Napier, 221. 

Margoliouth, 193. 

Martel, Charles, 211. 

Martin, A. W., 304, 325 f. 

Martin, W. A. P., 115, 353. 

Maurice, F. D., 181. 

Mencius, 150, 153 ff. 

Menzies, 347. 

Mishkat, 228. 

Mohammed, diverse judg- 
ments of, 180 f; place in 
Mohammedanism, 18 2; 
life of, 183 ff; the Hegira, 



186; use of force, 189 f; 
influence, 192 f; problem 
of his character, 193 ff. 

Mohammedanism, the 
youngest world religion, 
179; supersedes Christi- 
anity, 179; place of Mo- 
hammed in, 182 ; first 
believers, 185 ; use of force, 
188 ff; foundations of, 
195-200 ; doctrines of, 200- 
208 ; practical duties of, 
208-210; spread of, 210 f ; 
schism, 212 ff; moral 
effects, 218 f; petrifying 
influence, 220 f; morally 
defective, 222-229; intol- 
erance, 226 ; contrasts 
with Christianity, 229-233 ; 
contacts with Christi- 
anity, 233-237. 

Monier Williams, on the 
character of Indian peo- 
ple, 6; on the Upanishads, 
10; on popular Hinduism, 
23; on Ram Mohun Roy, 
27; on Buddhism, 68, 76, 
110 f. 

Moothsowami Tyer, 356. 

Moslem, 185. 

Muavia, 212. 

Muir, Sir William, 219, 224. 

Mukerji, 247, 249, 253, 271, 
282, 287, 291. 

Muller, Max, on good in 
ethnic religions, 7; on 
the Upanishads, 10 ; on 
comparative religion, 301, 
306 f, 311 f, 318 f, 323. 

Namaz, 208. 

Nassau, R. H., 128 f, 131 f. 

Nanak, 26. 

Naryan Sheshadri, 49. 

Nevius, J. L., 142. 

Nirvana, 82 f, 85. 

Northern Buddhism, 97 f. 

Okuma, 104, 109. 
Oldenberg, 349. 
Omar, 190, 192, 211, 217, 229. 
Omar Khayyam, 206, 207. 

Palgrave, 218. 



372 



INDEX 



Pantheism, 47. 

Parliament of Religions, 304. 

Poole, Stanley Lane, 224. 

"Press, The Seoul," 108. 

Prideaux, Dean, 180. 

Pung Kwang Yu, 125, 141, 

146. 
Qias, 199. 

Ramakrishna Paramahansa, 

18. 
Ramanathan, 319. 
Ram Chundra, 14. 
Ram Mohun Roy, 27 ff, 50. 
Ranade, 323. 
"Reis and Rawer," 21. 
Rhys Davids, "64 f. 
Richard, Timothy, 101. 
Robinson, Canon C. II., 94. 
Ross, Alexander, 180. 
Rothe, Richard, 361. 
Roza, 209. 

Saktism, 23. 

Sale, 180. 
Sangha, 73, 90 f. 
Saradananda, 17. 

Schopenhauer, 9. 

Sell, 208. 

Shaku Soven, 113. 

Shedd, W." A., 216. 

Shiahs, 213. 

Shintoism, 104 f, 259. 

Simpson, Sir Alexander, 
169. 

Si raj ud Din. 247, 249, 254, 
256, 258, 266, 274, 283, 
287, 291. 

Siva, 19. 

Slater, on Christian influ- 
ence on Hinduism, 39 f; 
on insufficiency of Hin- 
duism, 42; on the Bhaga- 
vad-gita, 11; on Vedant- 
ism, 11, 16. 

Smith, Bosworth, 231 ff. 

Smith, Robertson, 219. 

Sobieski, John, 211. 

Steinthal, F. W., 58. 

Stobart, 220. 

Subhadra Bhikshu, 79. 

Sufiism, 216. 

Sunnat, 198. 



Sunnis, 213. 

Tai-ping rebels, 103. 
Takakusu, 104. 
Tantras, 23. 
Taoism, 157-162. 
Tao Teh King, 159. 
Taylor, Jeremy, 89. 
Thoburn, Bishop, 328. 
Tibetan Buddhism, 97 f. 
Tiele, 303 f, 364. 
"Times, The Japan," 108. 
Tisdall, St. Clair, 328, 330. 
Townsend, Meredith, 246, 

276 ff, 310. 
Transmigration, 79. 
Tsen, 247 f, 253, 255, 257, 

265, 268, 281, 286, 290. 
Tsuzuki, 106. 

Tylor, 128. 

Uchimura, Kanzo, 108, 117, 

308 f, 362. 
Uemura, 247, 252, 256, 259, 

266, 278, 284, 289, 293. 
Uhlhorn, 350. 
Upanishads, 9 f, 21 f, 3. 
I'paka, 72. 

Vaishnava Movement, 26 f. 

Varuna, 9. 

Vedantism, 11, 13, 15 ff. 

Vedas, 7 f, 35, 37. 

Vishnu, 19, 20, 25 t. 

Vivakananda, 17 f, 23 f, 48. 

Wahabism, 216 f. 

Waitz, 344. 

Warneck, 128, 130. 

Washburn, 203. 

Watanabe, Justice, 247, 252, 

268, 279, 284, 290. 
Wesley, Charles, 180. 
Westcott, Bishop, 340, 364 f. 
Wiiliams, S., 345. 
Williams, S. Wells, 172 f. 
Woman, in Buddhism, 87, 

95; in Christianity, 349 ff; 

in Confucianism, 168 f; 

in Hinduism, 45 f, 356; in 

Mohammedanism, 219, 222 

ff. 
Yasodhara, 70. 
Zakat, 209. 



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